Here I am
by Strange Bint
Summary: The Chosen Slayers crashing LA creates a better fate for the fang gang, but at what cost? Can soul-boys and a god-king make a difference to two lost Chosen Ones? Romance, horror, angst, kid/family, h/c, character study, alt. reality, action, humor, super dark with light. Something for everyone. Spike/Faith Spuffy Buffy/Angel Vamp Buffy, Buffy/Faith, Illyria, Connor
1. Chapter 1

A NOTE FROM STRANGE BINT:

_To all who want to know:_

_Don't panic, this isn't a note saying I am not going to finish "More or Less" or even my Spuffys or quitting to go write Heroes fan-fic or something. I just wanted to say that I plan on doing more writing over the holiday break. So, look forward to some new stuff from "More or Less" and who knows...an update to the site???_

_ Thanks for being patient. I hope you can continue to hang in there as I have HUGE life projects going on. I may start writing Jossverse flash-fic just to keep my mind flowing. I am sad that the Slayer Archive seems to be down for good. I understand the show is gone…less people will have interest. But, I'm still interested. Does anyone know other archives where I can post? If not, is fine. Anyway Happy Holidays to all and this is an old DARK fic I am posting._

_Takes place after "Shells" in Angel season 5. It is: Spike/Buffy dark, Angel/Buffy dark, and Spike/Faith_

_ I didn't think it was appropriate for but it seems the "M" rating carries a lot of weight. Of course, it's so old I think it's horrible now and want to change it. But, enough rambling here it is. (If you are reading on LJ or a ML this link will lead you to )_

_Cheers,_

_SB_

* * *

It wasn't right. It was just bloody creepy! Of course, Spike could understand loving a girl so much that anything, any piece of her that he could have was good--like a robot made to look like her, or her using him for sex. However, Spike was sure that Wesley had gone mad. Wesley first said he was bringing that thing that killed Fred around because it was better to have a twenty-four hour watch on her. Spike asked how IIlyria had come to agree to joining in on the take-your-evil-goddess-that-murdered-your-girl-to-work-day. He was told to shut-up, of course. Then, Spike realized that this IIlyria, this leather blue bitch evil thing had developed a dependency on Wesley. This thing that had drained the life out of Fred and destroyed her soul would follow Wesley into the bloody loo if she could, and he was getting off on it! Well, Spike wasn't going to put up with that. He told Wes how disgusting he was, and if he had any real love for Fred he would find a way to destroy that thing that killed her.

This is when Spike expected Angel to jump in and defend his right hand man's honor. He didn't. He just pushed his way through the gaping employees and told Spike this is a place of business.

"Yeah, a place of morally ambiguous business that is picking off your friends one by one! They found a way to manipulate your boys, Angel. But, they had to kill your girls out-right because they were too good to be corrupted, " Spike yelled.

When Angel had nothing to say back, Spike turned to Wesley.

"I wish to God that Fred could see you now, Percy. She'd find you so repulsive she would high tale it out of this place and be somewhere safe, but I'd bet you'd rather have it this way. Something that looks just like her, but needs you to make her way in this world. Fred was doing a fine job on her own until she went with you," he said.

With that Wes had taken out a stake from somewhere on his person, and charged Spike. Good. This was just what Spike needed a good fight to get his juices flowing again so he would stop feeling so miserable about Fred. It may help Wes feel better about the whole thing too. The boy had better moves than Spike had thought. This wouldn't be a boring fight.

Then, Spike had felt himself get thrown through glass. Angel, Spike thought. His Grand-Sire had somehow snuck up on him. He wasn't usually so stealthy but it was just like the old poof to not fight fair.

"Bloody hell!" Spike coughed as he lay on the ground, "How much of the annual budget has gone into replacing these bloody windows almost every week. If I were you, I'd just forget the windows and make this place one of those cubical places."

Spike expected his Sire to be standing over him with that angered yet smug frown and protruding furrowed brow. Instead Spike saw his insey little friend, Fred. Yes, it was Fred with a punk dominatrix make-over. Spike wouldn't have minded that at all; accept that it wasn't Fred. It was just some horrible bitch that squashed her soul and remembered her life. She could pack a mean punch, or a hurling, or whatever she had just done to Spike. Spike was realizing that wasn't just his average window throw through. He felt like a speeding truck hit him.

"You were hurting the Qwa'ha Xahan. That will not stand. He is much more impressive than the other Qwa'ha Xahan that he killed," IIlyria told Spike as she looked at him with those icicle eyes.

"You hear that, Percy? That was all for you. She fancies you. You have a loyal bitch in your girlfriend's murderer," Spike laughed painfully.

"Why do you call the Qwa'ha Xahan a different name than what the rest of these humans and half-breeds call him?" IIlyria asked Spike.

"Great. Now it's talking to me," Spike muttered, "I dunno, little girl blue. Why do you call him something different than what everyone else does?"

"The title is a sign of respect for my most loyal follower," It answered.

"Well, I'm gonna give him a lot more titles in a minute, and they aren't going to be signs of bloody respect," Spike laughed as he still lay on the floor with bits of glass around him.

"You are a Warrior, but you don't lead these people. I think it's because you are much more volatile than the leader. You seem to only agitate them. Why are you here?" IIlyria asked as Spike tried to get up.

"You've gotta hand it to her; she does ask good questions," Angel said as he pulled Spike of the ground.

"It's not a girl. It's not Fred. It's no good. Have you lost your mind?" Spike sneered at his Sire as Angel let go of him.

"Go home, Spike. Patrol the streets. Play the hero and go home," Angel said in a surprisingly soft way.

"What the hell are you all playing at I'd like to know?" Spike demanded as he left.

He didn't get an answer. He did go home though. Straight home. He did not pass go; he did not collect two hundred dollars. He found himself feeling odd. He didn't want to find evil things to beat on in order to save people he didn't know. He was having a hard enough time doing that with people he did know. He knew the next big fight was here. He could feel it, as he always could feel when big things were about to come. But, maybe his place wasn't here if everyone around him was going to turn a blind eye to the big fight. He needed something to work with here, for God sake!

For now being a lone wolf would have to do until he decided if he was going to go somewhere else or find a different set of idiots to work with. Spike had his ear to the ground as usual.

He heard there was a Slayer in town. She was a rogue, chasing something big and bad. Of course, Spike kept this news to himself. It was easy enough to do; everyone was in such a state over Fred, and fucking Percy bringing IIlyria into Wolfram as if she were to be a bloody employee.

Spike thought it had to be some green Slayer that had gotten all cocky and disobeyed Buffy and went out on her own. As Spike checked his voice mail he heard that one of his connections, Frick, had called him. He said he had the Slayer. Frick said they had found her "beaten in a way to stay alive and feel the sting of pain." Well, that would teach the girl that not every Slayer was Buffy and that she best go back under Buffy's tutelage.

Spike called Frick and asked for more details. He said she had dark hair. All she did was mumble letters and colors. Spike thought maybe the crazy Slayer, Dana had escaped, and she was coming back home to do more damage, but that didn't make much sense. There would be reports of her doing damage in the news. There was just the usual on the telle. A shooting here and there in downtown, a middle aged man on his Viagra kick tortured and killed along with his lovely young wife (that had to be the Ex-wife), and the usual trash talk of all the Yank politicians. Oh yeah, Frick said something else the Slayer did mention one name that made sense--Dracula. Now Spike was more than a little interested.

"Eh," Frick sighed, "I don't know if it means much, Man. I have a theory that this beating she took brought her back to her Sesame Street' days, and she's just watching all the numbers and letters and that Count Dracula puppet in her head."

"No, Mate. Drac wasn't on the public access channel with that stuff for bits," Spike said.

"Yeah he was. Well, it wasn't him, but they have that cute little puppet that counts. You know: one bat Oowoo-woo, Ha, ha, ha. Two bats Oowoo-woo--"

"I know!" Spike grumbled, "Spare me the impression, okay? The bloody puppet's name wasn't Dracula. He was just called The Count.' Now did she mention Drac, or did she say The Count?"

"Man, I don't remember. I'm kinda high right now. Look do you want her or not? I don't want her when the thing that did this comes back for her, or when she starts to come to a little more. She may like Sesame Street but she also seems to have a temper. In her one full conscious moment she came a little too close to clawing my eyes out," Frick grumbled.

"Eh, if you were able to stop her from clawing her eyes out what makes you think she's a Slayer? Maybe the poor thing is just a regular beat upon girl. Take her to a hospital," Spike sighed.

"Trust me. I have my sources. She's one of em. Look, if you don't want her I know plenty of people that would love a Slayer in an almost coma," Frick said.

"You asshole! You're gonna sell a beat-up girl to some demons, and say she's a Slayer unless I come and get her!" Spike grumbled.

"She is a Slayer. Hey, you know me. I'm a good guy, Spike. But, times are getting tough and I have to go where opportunity takes me," Frick said.

"God!" Spike scowled into the phone, "What is it with this town? You know a place is in trouble when all the heroes are chasing the dollar, and I have to be Mr. Do-Right."

"So, does that mean you're coming, Dudley? If you are, hurry up, because I don't know how many more Sesame Street episodes she has in her head, and when she does come to she tries to bolt," Frick said.

"So, you really think her mentioning Drac was the bloody puppet? Maybe you're right. It's not bloody likely that Drac would come back to the States after last time. Hey! Is she talkin' about any of the puppets on that show that turned out to be evil?" Spike asked.

"Spike, just get here and see for yourself. I can't have her here much longer. I hate the sight of blood and she's been cut up all over. It's really sick, man," Frick said.

"Right," Spike said, "Oh and if I found out you had anything to do with makin' her the way she is, I'll kill you slow."

"Spike, c'mon," Frick gasped, "I'm a lover not a fighter."

"If I smell that you were a lover on her while she was unconscious, I'll take all your off your naughty parts and dissect them in front of you," Spike said.

"Jesus! Spike, I just ate. Just get here," Frick said before he hung up the phone.

Spike knew Frick was not capable of the things he had just accused him of, but he was still something of a slime. Spike was sure he was playing the angle of their being a Slayer in town, and he had found some poor semi-conscious girl in the street. Now Frick was gonna try to get a favor out of Spike by saying this was a Slayer. Pity. If it had been a Slayer Spike would have given the little girl a sizable lecture about how lucky she was to be alive. He would have said that Buffy may seem like a blow-hard at times, but Buffy was their leader for a reason. He'd say that the world was a hard cruel place, and she better go back with her troops if she wanted to be apart of fighting in it. Oh well, maybe it was for the best. If he had found a Slayer and sent them back to Buffy, she would only confirm that Spike was alive. He couldn't play the masked man hero. He wasn't Angel. He actually had a personality, and Buffy would have known it was him that saved one of her girls. Than Buffy would either do nothing about him being alive in LA, or something and both were things Spike did not want to face yet.

Spike got to Frick's and he saw her. It was her, lying there. His face fell. He dropped to his knees by her bed-side.

"What? What? I told you it was bad. I just figured you'd seen and done worse," Frick said.

"Bugger," Spike whispered.

Spike didn't know her very well. He wasn't even sure if he liked her all that much. He had liked her very much in the beginning, but then something happened. She brassed him off. Spike couldn't remember how now, but she had brassed him off. He didn't know the Slayer well enough to remember her smell.

"Man, what is it? Do you know her or something? Oh man! She isn't the one that you banged, is she? Damn...of course she is. That totally makes sense. Dude, I'm real sorry. But, she'll be all right, right?" Frick rambled on nervously now as Spike looked over the girl.

He wasn't even sure if it was her at first because her face was so badly beaten, but an instant later he knew it was. He checked her arm for the tattoo, and his face didn't even sink a second time when he saw it there on her arm, the black tribal etchings against the soft white skin. He knew it was her before the tattoo because he would have recognized that body anywhere. Short, compact but lean, perfect round breasts in a tight black shirt.

"Bugger," he repeated and slowly got up.

"I mean, she'll be okay. She's a Slayer, right?" Frick asked.

He looked like a sad body-building Woodland creature--literally. He had an average sized extremely over muscled human body and his brown eyes with their long lashes showed no white in them. Frick's clan of demons were all over LA. They often passed for human when they covered up their ridged earlobes, and Hollywood thought they were so pretty. They often played action heroes. But, all that natural muscle didn't do much good against Spike when he was this angry.

"You have thirty seconds to tell me what it is you're not telling me so I hope, for your sake, it isn't a lot," Spike said in vampire face as he pushed Frick into his wall.

"Spike, you're my friend, man. You knew I was kidding when I said I was gonna sell her to someone else, right?" Frick said nervously.

"20...19...18..., Look who the real Count is, only I am much more violent when I get to zero than the puppet or Drac combined," Spike said.

"I don't think either of them have violence as their thing. Dracula just messes with your head before he feeds on you and the puppet---" Frick babbled.

"10...9...8..." Spike said as he grabbed Frick's throat.

"Dracula, gotta get... He got her," the Slayer moaned painfully as if Frick's mention of Drac made her stir some.

"See, Dracula...She says Dracula' I told you that, and then she starts in with the numbers, the-the letters, and the colors, man. I told you that too," Frick said.

"5..4..3..2--" Spike continued.

"Two. Two ways to save her. Two ways to bring her back. Two, two, and then three, "The Slayer said this like she was arguing with someone.

"See," Frick said.

"Oh, look at that," Spike smiled in vamp face, "All this talking brought us past zero. Too bad it's not the talk I'm after."

He punched the demon in the face.

"Okay!" Frick pleaded.

"She came to town and she hired a couple of my boys to help her bring down a vampire," Frick said.

"She hired some demons to help her bring down Drac? That makes no bloody sense! You better stop lyin' to me," Spike threatened.

"It wasn't Dracula. She said it was a vampire, but I don't know. I think it was something else. Something way worse and she didn't want to be straight with the boys about what it was. I feel sorry for you if you have a thing for this girl. She's no Sweetheart. She threatened and beat-up a lot of demons and people to keep it quiet that she was here. She said if anyone leaked it out to that company that you work for, she'd kill them. She really did not want you to know she was here, Dude," Frick sighed in relief as Spike relaxed his hold on the demon.

"Bloody hell," Spike grumbled and went over to the Slayer's bed-side where she now laid unconscious again.

"What have you gone and done, you little Bitch? Still tryin' to prove you're as good as Buffy. Well, you're not. You thought you could handle some big bad on your own. Looks like I'm gonna get to give my little unity speech after all. Wake-up, Coma girl! This bullocks may work with Buffy, but it won't with me, Faith," Spike grumbled as he grabbed her arms and shook her.

"B!" she yelped but her eyes were still shut.

"There she goes with the letters, I told ya. She says the numbers, but she seems to be really upset at the letters and the colors," Frick said.

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?" Spike demanded.

"B," Faith cried now and opened her eyes.

"Oh Man," Frick sighed, "I really hope she isn't going to keep saying b' over and over now like when they first brought her in here."

"What did you do to, Buffy? You Bitch!" Spike yelled now.

"I let her go. Killing is wrong," she said. Then she opened her swollen eyes. "Spike!"

"That's right. Now tell me what you did to Buffy."

"We can't do it your way," Faith shook her beat up head at him and now was rising up out of the bed.

"There's where you're wrong. There's only my way. What did you do to Buffy?"

"Red said we can't do it your way, the fighting way. She doesn't want to fight for it, so we'll do it the other way. It'll all be five by five. I have to go get her is all," Faith said in a cheerful almost child-like way. She was clearly not herself. She was in some state of disorientation, and she wasn't shining it on. This girl couldn't fake cheerful and child-like. She'd have to be beaten into it.

"Well, I can see this is a private conversation between you two love-birds, so I'll leave you alone. See, I'm a good guy. I'll let you use my place," Frick said nervously before running out. He was a man that knew when he was out of his depth.

Faith was now trying to stagger out of the place too.

"I don't think so," Spike said as he grabbed the girl around her waste. She fell back on him. She was lean and soft and smelled of her own blood, and someone else's that he knew well.

"No! Let me go! I have to get her before they find her first," She screamed. He had no idea that Faith had a shrill girl scream like that in her. It almost made Spike feel sorry for her when she started to cry.

"All right," Spike said slowly, "You're still alive for two reasons. Number one it seems like Buffy beat on you way worse than you beat on her, and number two you can tell me where she is."

"Red said I can't tell. You could be with them," Faith whispered now.

"Who? Wolfram and Hart?"

"No, The New Council. The Old Council. Same difference. They kill us bad girls. Red said they could get to you. So, we have to take care of B alone. Bad girls unite," Faith was whispering like a drunken school girl with a secret. She was still trying to weakly run from his grip on her waste.

"Right, this whole little girl delirious number was much cuter on Drusilla. Red would never hurt Buffy," Spike said.

"Red will make it right, but, I--I am the one to bring her back," Faith said.

Spike's insides felt like someone had poured holy water on them, and they were melting away and sliding down the shell of his outsides. Spike sat down on the bed with his arms still around Faith's waste. It made it so she was sitting in his lap.

"Can't play with you, Stud," Faith laughed as she was forced to sit on Spike, "Gotta go save B."

"Faith, is Buffy dead?" Spike asked in dread.

"No, you can't kill her. It's wrong!" Faith began to cry again.

"Faith, did Dracula kill Buffy?" Spike asked with a swallow.

"No!" Faith wailed now, "She's not dead. There are two ways. Two ways to get a vamp their soul. Red said we can only do it the one way. Then there will be three of you. Three of you. It'll be five by five."

Frick was right. She went on about letters, colors, numbers, and Drac. What he didn't realize was that it was no trip back to kiddie land on the telle. Much like Drusilla, Faith was talking in a code in her state, and in that code was the whole sodding wretched tale. B and Drac; Red and two and then three. Spike wondered what five by five was. Then he realized it was the old radio code. Sometimes cops still used it, and Spike knew Faith had spent some time around them. Five by five- everything was all right. Everything was not bloody all right.

_You're never gonna find him! Not before he gets to her._ That's what Spike had said to Captain Cardboard about Dracula. That seemed like ages ago. He was powerless with that chip and was down a soul back then, but he was right. He knew he was bloody right. What he didn't know, what he should have realized, was that Drac wasn't about to give up. Not with a creature as fine as Buffy. He had been humiliated and dusted twice, and Drac wasn't going to let that stand. Spike told Buffy that Drac couldn't have been dead, that as tacky as he was with his smoke and mirrors truly killing him had to be harder than that._ I Euro-trashed him twice. I saw smoke like he was thinking of rising again, but then he decided against it. _Decided against it! Like Drac would just choose to stay smoke forever because of her. This is where Buffy was so naive. You didn't decide to stay nothing because of her; you rose up and became something better and greater because of her. Accept Drac's idea of becoming something better wasn't to get a soul. He had a bit of Angel's style; it was all about me, me, me.

Why hadn't Spike seen this coming? He knew best how Buffy went weak for the bad boy monsters that called for her. He should have bloody done something, damn it! He wasn't even doing anything now. He was just sitting in his place crying like he had done when Buffy had died. He cried quietly as to not wake the beat up Slayer that laid unconscious in his bed now. But, he knew there was still hope, still something that could be done. Maybe that's why Spike had stayed up staring at this dark haired bitch of a Slayer. He knew that with all of Angel's Wolfram and Hart connections, and all of Rupert's white hat connections the only one that was really going to be able to make it possible to save Buffy was Faith.

Faith knew how Buffy would think now that she was a vampire. This Slayer had always fancied herself as Buffy's darker half, but now the light half had turned black. Spike really hoped this girl was up to the challenge. Things didn't seem like they were off to a pleasing start, did they?

He wasn't sure how oriented Faith was. She seemed to go in and out. Sometimes she seemed to know Spike and tell him how it was going to be all right, or how they couldn't do it his way (whatever that meant.) But, when he asked her real questions like where Red was or why Red hadn't just done the bloody ensouling spell already she could never answer. But, Faith's one track mind did remain on one thing--Buffy._ Had to get B; had to save B; B wasn't dead._ If Spike was anyone else he would have gotten sick of hearing the letter "B" too. As he wasn't anyone else, he was liking Faith more and more. She was a very determined girl. She bolted up out of the bed several times the minute she got some strength in her fevered head. She wanted to go save B, damn it! Spike would have to toss her back in the bed and explain that it wasn't time for that now, but soon it would come. He was reminded again of Dru, who would often be weak after a vision and get it in her head that it was a fabulous idea to wander off in that state. However, with Dru it had all been a fun game. Faith was angry and miserable, and Spike was surprised at how miserable this made him. Well, she was the Slayer that would save Buffy.

Faith had been tossing and turning and crying a little all night herself. Spike had given her Aspirin and she had looked at him with suspicious delirium, like she wasn't quite sure of who he was. But, then when he offered to take her to Wolfram and Hart so she could get some real medical care she had bolted up.

"No! No Angel!" she objected furiously, and then started to cry.

If only more girls he knew had that reaction to his Grand-Sire he'd be happier. But, he hadn't really liked to see her crying. He'd of thought that Faith's tear ducts had hardened long ago. It brought him back to the reality and horror of the situation. This wasn't just another fine mess. This wasn't just the end of the world. This was something much worse. It made Spike cry again himself.

"Vamps cry?" Faith half asked him or herself in her beat upon state that was definitely getting better than before. However, it didn't look like she liked finding out the fact that Vamps cried. As she looked at him with her one good eye that wasn't swollen up, her scratched up forehead creased with more lines of confusion. Her bloody lips pouted.

"Don't. Between me an' her. It's five by five," the Slayer said groggily, and she reached out and touched Spike's arm.

Spike was pretty sure Faith was trying to be soothing. He was surprised she would even attempt such a thing. Of course, if she wanted to be any good at it she had to start making sense. Faith had made enough sense for him to put two and two together though, and he knew it was four no matter what. Maybe the girl was crying at the thought of seeing Angel because Faith knew he would refuse to accept her painful semi-conscious whispers as the truth and he would demand she wake up and recite the whole tale.

Spike didn't want to hear the details of how Dracula had turned Buffy and how certain Slayers wanted to kill their leader because she had turned into the enemy. Buffy had turned into the enemy that she had trusted and believed in when she saw there was still good inside. She believed in the enemy when there was just a scrap of good left. Of course, it had been Faith that knew this and somehow had not allowed them to kill Buffy.

"Sorry, sorry," Spike muttered as he took off Faith's jeans and her little black top. She was whining in her sleep. It was probably painful for her to be tugged at, but he couldn't stand it anymore. The clothes were blood filled and dirty with other things. They had the slight smell of Buffy on them. It was feint, but he couldn't take it.

"You said you wouldn't anymore if I was good," Faith whispered, or at least that's what he thought he heard.

"Hey," he said, "I'm not tryin' to be fresh. I just thought I'd take these things off and wash the blood off you, but--but, I guess not, if it's gonna...trigger... bad things."

"Very bad things," she echoed as her eyes were shut.

He didn't know how he could possibly feel any worse, and then he did. Not only was the love of his life turned into an evil monster by the ultimate Euro-trash hack, but he had accused the girl trying to save her of trying to off her. On top of that, the girl was feeling violated by him now.

"Sorry," he said.

"Sorry don't mean shit," she said with a kind of drunken laughter as she opened her eyes.

"Don't I know it. S'why I never say it. You're one of a very few lucky ladies to get that word out of a bad boy like me," he told her. He wasn't sure how together she was, but it hadn't stopped him from talking

"You're not so bad. You're a cool vampire. B knows all the cool vampires," she said.

He looked deeply into her eyes now to try to suss out if she was as oriented as she seemed. She seemed all there now. He looked at her body that he had stripped down to its skivvies. Someone was very into repetitive punching in soft places; Spike knew who that someone was. But, Buffy had made it so Faith would heal.

"Staring problem?" Faith grumbled with some expression between a sneer and a grin. Oh yeah. The bitch was fully back. Spike smiled.

"No, jus' taking stock of your wounds--how you feeling?" he asked.

"Like a hostage."

"Fair enough. Just featured you'd still be sore."

"I'm good. Better than when you dragged me in here, and apparently still breathin' so, can't really complain."

"You were tossing about all night, you sleep okay?"

"Not really, pain kind'a an intrusion on the whole sleep concept. What's with you and the twenty questions anyway?"

"Just wanted to see if you were really here with me is all," he sighed heavily.

"Here I am, though I can't really claim that I'll rock you like a hurricane," she sighed back.

"Making references to really bloody awful bands, though. Maybe you're still a bit daft," he found himself smiling.

"Hey! I love The Scorpions, shut up," she smiled broadly.

"Oh, no," Spike laughed heartily, "She's permanently damaged. A bloody tragedy."

He was remembering the last time they talked now. Buffy had been jealous in an awful way. He and Faith had laughed a lot over fluffy matters like this. He didn't feel as guilty laughing with Faith then. It had only been the end of the world after all; Buffy had been all right.

"You want me to wash some of the blood off you. You'll feel better. Maybe you'll actually sleep. You need sleep for what's ahead," he said.

"When ever I come here I get sticky. It really sucks," she said.

He took that as a "yes" and got all his little nurse-maid materials to wash her. He started off with her face because that was the biggest mess and then did what he could without moving her about too much.

"Spike," she smiled, "Alive and well...Pulled a Jesus and is living in LA."

"That's me," he laughed, "Though if I was Jesus I'd have a lot more money now and daft people following me about.

That's more Angel's gig."

She laughed, and then winced in pain. He couldn't believe they were joking, but they were-- still. This one did have a way with the forthright humor. He was glad she was coming back to herself.

"But, you're being saintly with a girl in your bed. You said you didn't want to get fresh. The Messiah deals well with temptation," she said.

"I like em' a bit less immobilized and bloody these days," he smiled.

"I'm still lively...I could ride you to a gallop until you popped like warm champagne," she laughed sheepishly as if she dared herself to say it.

"You stop that talk, or I'll stick this soapy rag in your mouth," he laughed.

"Kinky," she said.

"Well, someone is back to themselves at least in the mind, as dirty as ever. But you're saying it all wrong. It was ride me at a gallop until my legs buckled and my eyes rolled up. That you had muscles I never even dreamed of, that you could squeeze me until I popped like warm champagne," he said as he was drying her off. He had done a decent job, and he hadn't seemed to hurt her.

"Wow, I said all that?" she asked.

"And more," he said.

"Damn, I am so good," she smiled. "Do you remember everything people tell you?"

"Only the important things," he sighed, "Now get some real sleep."

"I wish I could, but I can't. I have to go get B," she said and swiveled out of the bed.

"Are you mad?" he said as he felt his forehead wrinkle, "You have a half a day of healing left at least."

"Hello? I'm a Slayer. Can I borrow some clothes?" she asked as she stood up in her skivvies now.

"Yeah, hello. If you weren't a Slayer you'd have months of healing to do," he said as he stood up to face her.

"The longer I wait the longer B is out there in danger," Faith said.

"Love," Spike laughed, "Buffy is a Slayer that now has the compounded strength up a bloody vampire. If it works like that."

"Oh yeah, take a look at me and the five other demons she beat down, and trust me it works like that," Faith said as she rolled her blackened eyes.

"So, she is not in any danger," Spike sighed, the misery of the situation coming back to him.

"You don't understand!" Faith demanded, "The longer she's out there all evil and crazy like that, the worse she'll feel about it later and I don't want her to go through that. She doesn't deserve it."

"That's very noble," Spike said seriously, but then added, "But, throwing yourself to the slaughter is all you'd be doing if you left to find her in this state. Besides, it's daylight. She can't be hurting anyone now."

"Unless she has human minions dragging people underground or if she's devising some kind of diabolical plan. I really never thought about the kind of vampire she would be. You think that thought would have come to me once or twice. I guess, when you're better we should stake out all the shopping malls and shoe stores. She'll be killing clerks and pushy shoppers left and right," Spike continued.

"Spike!" Faith exclaimed, "This is serious shit!"

"I am completely serious," he said truthfully.

"You don't want to face the truth. I'm outta here," she said.

Spike really wondered if she was going to walk out to find Buffy and fight her bruised up in her underwear.

"I can't face the truth! Okay, Jack bloody Nicholson. I'm just a vampire, albeit one of the finest, but I'd say Buffy is a lot stronger than me right now. Get past me and you're free to go," he said.

He really expected her to hit him a couple of times before he got her back to the bed.

"Fuck you," was all she said and she looked down and her eyes got misty.

"Well, you don't have to spill salt over it. Tomorrow you'll be ready to fight and I'll be with you," he assured as he got her back into bed.

"I'm not--- Spike, don't you get it! Buffy is a vamp. She has no soul. She's out there killing because of me and---"

"It's not you're fault. You couldn't let those other Slayer bitches kill her. So, a few snippy little clothes horses lose their lives, while Buffy isn't herself. How many people has Buffy kept alive? She'd have to destroy the world seven times over to erase the good she has done," Spike eased.

"Giles," Faith said.

"Buffy killed Rupert," Spike felt his face fall.

Why would she do that? That would be like killing her father. Spike knew that most vampires did that, but Spike had never wanted to kill his Mum. He never even wanted to hurt her, but of course...

"No, not even she could get to him, or Dawn, all the Slayers have them very well guarded," Faith said miserably.

"Well that's great but--" Spike began with a relieved sigh until Faith cut him off.

"It wasn't the Slayer bitches that wanted Buffy killed, for the most part. It was Giles. He had all the green Slayers capture her, but then I---"

"What!" Spike roared, "I knew that bloody Wanker would backstab me, but to do it to her?"

"He says it's--she's not B. That B is dead, and now all that's left is..." Faith's voice trailed off so she wouldn't cry.

"Well, I think I'm learning that some people's bloody darkness is even a little brighter than some Git's holier that thou lightness!" Spike grumbled.

"It doesn't seem like he's got the stake rammed up his channel about this. He seems so --so sad," Faith said.

"Well, he'll be a lot sadder when I get through with him. If Buffy was nothing but evil she would have found a way to kill him. She--she would have killed you. She left you alive, right? She purposely left you alive to suffer. And you two didn't have the best of the best relationships, if she was going to kill anyone it would have been you, right?" Spike said.

Faith didn't respond. He realized she was struggling to not cry.

"Oh bloody--I didn't mean it that way. I'm sorry. I'm a thoughtless bastard at times," he said.

"I'm getting that. Are there times when you're not?" She asked, "Look, you are one naive Fucker."

"Funny, I don't remember being the one trying to run out with half a concussion to capture a vampire Slayer vampire in my skivvies," he said to her ass as she bent down to look for her clothes.

"It's bad, man, it's bad. You gotta be ready if you wanna help me," she told him as she seemed to decide that any clothing would do.

Faith put on a pair of his jeans. They were baggy like the whole hip-hop look but they fit. Buffy was the only girl that would probably ever swim in his jeans. She tried them that time she was invisible, and they kept falling down. She had laughed and even tripped in them. _Look, I'm one of those commercials where all they have are the dancing jeans. Of course those jeans wouldn't have nasty sex stains on them. Hey, they're not staying up! Well, there goes another career idea. I can't even be a good invisible model. I mean, how hard is that?_

"I know what Buffy is like when she's on the dark side, and I know you running out in a beat-up state won't help," Spike said firmly.

"No you don't, Dude. She's--she's mean. She had ideas. She says things," Faith warned as she closed her eyes.

"Assuming she' is Buffy and not Martha Stewart, Of course, love, she's a vampire. She's not just Buffy with new teeth and wrinklies. I'm sure she's said things, horrible things, and even got a few people, but it's that worth losing her over?" Spike said.

"She killed her father, and his wife. She tortured them, made them go out slow," Faith said opening her eyes to him.

They were healing quite nicely.

"Her real father?" Spike grumbled, "Well, that rat Bastard had it coming. He's lucky I never paid him a visit. Well, I guess he's not lucky. But, you have to expect that, love. I'm sorry the wife got in the way."

"She killed two people--people that I loved, but that-that's okay. I can forgive her," Faith said closing her eyes again.

"Damn right you can. You owe her that much," Spike insisted "Who did she kill? Slayers that got in her way?"

"I'm not sayin' that I don't wanna save her. I'm just sayin' be ready," Faith said with a serious pout. Spike didn't know a pout could look so serious.

"Look, when this is all over, she'll have you to thank for all of it. You'll finally be even," Spike said.

"That's not why I'm fucking doing it!" she roared in that shrill voice again and then she was storming out in his jeans. She grabbed a shirt of his in her hands.

He grabbed her to stop her. There was a bit of a struggle, but not that much since she was still injured and blinded by tears. He had a bloody lip when it was over. He had made sure he never hit her. He just put all his efforts to holding her down on the bed, which is where she really wanted to be. Spike remembered playing the same game with Buffy, but they hadn't been doing it for any of the same reasons. Faith breathed heavily under him, and looked up at him with angry pleading eyes. They were also undoubtedly beautiful. All right, so maybe the reasons they were playing this game were the same reasons he had played it with Buffy.

They were only human, or she was. Faith was the only human one left, and she did look so human as she lay under him. Afraid and angry, but not at him -not really. She was very warm. When she breathed in you could see a hint of rib. Her perfect breasts held snugly in that cheap black bra that had blood on it. She was trying so hard, wasn't she? And she wasn't trying to be the best in her class, that role was taken. Faith was trying to save the best in her class because the best had fallen. Fallen for something vane and one-dimensional, something that she herself could see right through in a second because she hadn't been the hero and she learned the hard way. She knew that nothing that glittered was gold, and she was going to save the hero from the bad shiny thing. She wasn't going to be all superior about it either. She was going to laugh while she did it, and at least try to have a good time, and sometimes be a right bitch, because she wasn't the sodding hero. But, she was afraid she had to be, and she felt she couldn't be because she was never good at telling the rest of the folk that it was all going to be all right like heroes did.

"It's all right, Faith. It'll be all right," Spike said as he let go of her writs and held her hands while he knelt over her.

"No, it's really not. It's really all wrong," she said with tears in her eyes.

He moved down to kiss her. She bolted up so quickly that he thought she was going to object. _What are you doing?_ But, she only met up to meet his lips hungrily. At first she kissed roughly like he was the plate of secret food all the other starving people wanted and she better get it all up quick or someone would take it away. But, when he put his arms around her and rolled her on top her kisses became soft and deep.

"It'll be all right, love," he kept repeating.

She took his shirt off in one swoop and gave him a wicked smile. She pawed at his chest like she was sculpting it, like she had planed out the places she wanted to go on his body long ago. Nipples, chest, stomach, her hands, her lips her teeth. She made sure some part of her was always on his cock even before he could get his pants off. She had a hand down there as if there was a magnetic pull. She liked looking at it. She'd look down at it and then look up and smile, but then look away. A few times he grabbed her face to make her look at him. This always turned to kissing, and they'd both shut their eyes. Then she'd go back to staring at is cock. She was gentler with it than she was the rest of him. She teased him handling in fast than slow fast then slow as she kissed him and bit at him hard than soft hard than soft. He had stopped saying it was going to be all right because talking was no longer a priority. His mouth was locked in an open position his back arched so his body could go more into her mouth, her hands, her body.

"You think a boy carrying such a big stick would walk a little more softly," she whispered in his ear and she was playing with his cock with both hands fast now.

Brains. She had raw brains. Few women have nasty raw big brains. Special- she was.

"But I like the way you walk. Stomp loud and scare the assholes away," She was talking still.

Saying she liked him, but...But, he had to prove himself. Prove he wasn't just a boy stomping his feet. He was a man, a man who could do things, if she let him. Underwear was so bloody annoying. He couldn't get the damn things off with her insisting on playing with his cock constantly. He ripped them off. Faith laughed. Her laugh started to get nervous as he opened the lips of her cunny to take a peak. It was a fine one, all wet and wanting. Who hurt such a sweet beautiful thing? _Pet it until it feels better_. A girl's loopy high voice said to him inside his head. There, there cunny. Let Spike get inside and have a rub. The cunny wanted it but Faith wasn't so sure. She laughed nervously as she knelt back. She put all her energy into stroking him now. A master of diversion she was. Spike had his fingers playing with the cunny fighting through the pleasure of wanting to just lye back. Fighting-- so much better than lying still. Oh God, fighting was the best bloody thing in the world. He was going to have to really fight later. It was bloody awful out in the other world, but no matter now he was in this world.

Faith was moaning a low throaty moan as her hands relaxed around his cock. Yes, he wanted to be able to have a clear head when he proved himself. He wanted to see it. She seemed to want to go back to playing with his cock. But, he took his free arm and pushed her down to lie on her side.

"There you go," he said as she seemed to gasp in surprise as his thumb rubbed her clit and his other fingers were inside her. He loved feeling the cunny grip his hand and release it only to grip it again. And this was quite an impressive one. Faith had a grip like a Chinese finger trap.

"Fuck. Oh God..Fuck," She whispered with her eyes shut tight.

"That's it baby. Feel it. Feel me. Spike makes everything good," he said.

"Too good. Too good," she said firmly grabbing his hand. He kept stroking the cunny as it shook.

"Good girl," he said. Her whole body shook. She let go of his hand and rapped both of her arms around him tight, tight, tight--like no one ever. She screamed. Then she started with the hungry kissing again this time with little whimpers in between.

"Want to squeeze you, ride you, pop you--all of that," she told him as she rolled him and straddled him quickly and roughly.

She surprised him by looking him straight in the face.

"Whatever you wish, love," he said.

"Do you want me to, really?" she asked rather seriously.

He reached up and smoothed her cheek.

"More than I wanted anything in a long time," he said, "Do you want me to beg? Because that's not a pro--"

She kissed him hard and sloppily. She licked his lips. Then she quickly impaled herself on his cock before he expected it. He grunted in surprise and pleasure. He unhooked her bra which he couldn't believe had stayed on.

"No," she objected softly and went to hook it back up, but as he thrust under her slowly and deeply, she forgot about it. He reached up to touch her perfect breasts as she kept with his slow deep pace.

"Don't pinch," she said as she felt his hands go to her breast. He grabbed them up each and squeezed them gently.

"MMm. Like that," she said and he felt her cunny relax around him and he felt like he' d been let into a warm heavenly room.

His mouth locked open again as they began to buck more violently. He loved her moaning- the way it sometimes sounded just like her raspy voice and other times it sounded nothing like her - a high whimper. He was surrounded by warm strong Slayer. She was lying fully on top of him and he took a nipple in his mouth. She was wailing in pleasure now; the opposite of what she had been doing last night. Faith was riding him for the broken beast that he was, and she wanted all he could give. He found he wasn't all that broken. He was giving her quite a ride. She was shaking over him, around him, it twitched his cock while she rode it. Ah, blood, nothing but blood pumping away with pleasure. No brains nothing else needed. He gave all. He got back , and it had lasted, and lasted, and it was still going as she tightened around him. Faith's cunny would never release him if it was all up to that. He would be the hostage forever. With that he roared and roared in coming.

Spike remembered now. Remembered he had forgotten Buffy- turned, out there, alone. He would feel as horrid as he did when he had been alone in the basement, only he wasn't alone. He still had his arms around Faith. She tried to roll off of him, but he held tight to her, but not too tight. He expected her to really push him away, but to his surprise she didn't. She laid on top of him now. Her face in his neck. Spike felt something creaking under him. It was the bed bitching. It had never before seen such abuse. He heard it make that familiar _sod you I've had it_ sound.

"Oh, here we go," he rolled his eyes, and a second later the bed crashed to the floor.

"What the fuck was that?" Faith exclaimed as she shot up as if someone stuck her with a pin and she was going to kill them for it. She had clung to him tightly for a second as the bed fell. Buffy used to just laugh as she lay on her far end of the bed.

"Relax, love. It's just the bed getting revenge," Spike said.

"Holy shit!" She said still startled, "You must have got it from Ikea."

"You mean you never broke a bed before?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"You mean you have?" she asked.

"Well, yeah. I'm surprised you never have," he said.

"Well...everyone else has been human, though sometimes I wasn't sure I may have done it with a few zombies that I thought were just potheads," she said.

"That doesn't surprise me," Spike sighed.

"Yeah, well they don't call me a big slut for nothin'. I guess I'll get going. You mind if I take a shower?" she asked as if they had met at a bar.

"Gee, yeah. Maybe we can do it again next week when you get almost beaten to death by another vampire we're trying to ensoul. Where the bloody hell are you going?" he demanded.

"Look, I know I screwed up again, you didn't exactly stop me, ya know? Red and I are at this witch's house. I'll go there and I'll call you later," she said.

"You're kidding, right? You think I'm going to just let you walk off with Red and not make sure this all goes smoothly," he said.

"Well, you're doing a great job so far, Mr. Smooth. Look, you and I should just stay away from each other," Faith grumbled.

"You seemed pretty into the idea of staying near me a few minutes ago," he folded his arms.

"And he takes his first swing, which is exactly why I'm leaving. I don't need someone to give me shit about how I betrayed B after I rocked their world," she said as she looked at her shoes that she put on with his clothes.

"What are you talking about? I think you are the only person not betraying Buffy. True, I never thought I'd hear myself say that , but being that everyone else wants to bloody off her because she fell for Drac the second time---"

"I mean because I just fucked you," She grumbled.

"What?" he said "That's crazy. Buffy and I haven't been together in ages and I think I shagged you just as good as you shagged me. In fact I know I did."

"None of that matters chicks just always blame the other girl," she sighed.

"You watch too much Jerry Springer, love. I can't believe you are going to let this high school bullocks get in the way of saving Buffy. Look, say what you want, but you know I have a right to help Buffy, and it seems like my help is needed," he said.

"I know," she actually conceded, "We need all the help we can get, and there is someone else that has a right to help."

"Oh bugger!" Spike spat, "No, no, and no"

"High school bullocks anyone?" Faith said with folded arms.

"Things have gone round the bend there as it is."

"Red is scared. She doesn't trust Angel, but I do."

"Well, I bloody don't!"

"Fine, but do you really think Angel wouldn't do everything in his power to help B, just like you? And, hate to tell you Brit, but GQ has a lot more power than you," Faith said.

"Oh is that so? Well, I think you experienced a bit of my power a few minutes ago; I'd like to see Angel...Well, I wouldn't like to see Angel---"

"Dude, this is not a pissing contest; this is B's life!"

"Right, and what's Angel gonna do about it, besides go into a pout and lock himself away somewhere. Whenever Buffy has any real trouble he freezes up, unless he just breezes into town to lock lips with her and give me jewelry that kills me," Spike sighed.

"Doesn't Angel have a bunch of lawyers under his thumb now? Not that that does any good, but can't he hire bad-asses to help him with B and in return promise to get them off or something?"

"That awful place actually sounds fun when you put it that way," Spike sighed, "Right, let 's go then."

"Where?"

"To the big bad evil incorporated, of course."

"You mean where just gonna go there?" Faith asked.

"You were the one that said it was the good idea," Spike rolled his eyes.

"I--I can't just walk in there and say: Hey, Angel. The love of your life is dead...again. Only this time her body walks and talks and does evil shit.'" Faith went white as a ghost.

"Was that what all this hiding was about; you didn't want to make ol' Angel sad?" Spike demanded.

"Yeah, well that and the fact that if The New Council realizes we're here they'll come and try to kill B. Red and I thought we could handle it. The few people knew the less ashamed B would be later, but after last night even I'm smart enough to know I was wrong," Faith shuddered.

"Yeah, she got you pretty bad," Spike said as he patted her shoulder.

"It was more than the beating," Faith said, "But, it's over now. Time to face the next wave of shit."

"It's all coming in waves," Angel said miserably as he faced his office window, "They say it comes in threes, Cordy, Fred, and now Buffy."

"Angel, B's not--There's still hope. Red can do a spell, like the one she did with you," Faith said. Her eyes were wide, she looked worried. A different sort of worried than Spike had seen her look at his place.

"So, she can never know true happiness. So she can have a life like mine," Angel mumbled.

"As if she could ever be like your sorry ass. Besides, you seem to be doing all right for yourself with the sodding twelve cars and---"

"And the dying friends!" Angel turned and roared in Spike's face, "Don't push me, Spike. Not after you--- She deserves more." He recoiled back into his mumble.

"Look, we kinda don't have a lot of options right now. Red said going to Africa and fighting for it was out. B would have to be the one to fight for it and- trust me- she's not really in a soul-fighting space. So you and B will be two of a kind," Faith said to Angel's back . She was rocking back and forth on her feet like she was trying to get Angel to turn around.

"Pffft, Buffy will have more power than he ever dreamed, and she won't be troubled by having been an evil mass murderer for almost two centuries," Spike rolled his eyes.

"But, she's killing now, isn't she?" Angel asked turning to Faith.

Faith only nodded.

"Why am I ever surprised by your thickness?" Spike scoffed, "Of course she is! She's a bloody vampire. It's what we do."

"Buffy was pure, and now she's a vampire, and you're telling me her only chance to get back to who she was is to be cursed--cursed like me," Angel said.

"Pure," Spike muttered, "There he goes with that sodding 18th century crap."

"We all have to lose our purity sometime. Some of us just do it earlier than others. Cursed is better than nothing, Angel. Don't know if you noticed but being a Slayer and perfect happiness kinda have a whole oil in the water thing going on anyway," Faith almost smiled.

"Well, maybe if you made at least one good choice in your life you'd know something about being happy, and what do you know about purity?" Angel snapped.

What was this? He was snapping at Faith now. The poor girl looked slapped. Spike knew from the get-go that she was one of Angel's loyal followers, even though she saved his ass.

"Ey'!" Spike roared, "You owe this girl everything, and now you're gonna take it out on her because you wish Buffy was here instead of her? You really are a dick."

"I'm a dick? Really? Because I don't remember taking an opportunity to get in a Slayer' s pants, while the one I was so stuck on is in desperate need of help!" Angel roared.

"You told him we had sex?" Faith gasped.

"He can smell it. The bloody pervert," Spike rolled his eyes.

"Angel, I wasn't trying to hurt B," Faith pleaded.

"I don't care about any of that!" Angel spat, "It's you Faith. You knew Buffy was in trouble and you didn't tell me right away. I know to expect it from Giles and the others, but not you. You came to my city and hid from me. Instead you went to Spike and decided to have a good time while Buffy falls deeper into hell."

"Angel, it wasn't like that. B beat me down and Spike found me. He brought me back and took care of me--"

"I'm sure he did, that was time I could have had people on this. What is wrong with you? ...And you," Angel turned to Spike, "Just when I think there's one thing you're good for-loyalty to people you care about- you go off and be you're old self. Actually, you both did that, didn't you?"

"Angel, please, it wasn't like that," Faith's voice shook.

"That's it!" Spike roared. He grabbed Angel by his black button down as he turned into game face.

"I'd say that you we're going back to your old self, but both you and I know you only have the one!" Spike said as he hit Angel in the face, "It's just a switch from good to bad with you, but you always keep the bloody hypocrite no matter which side you go to."

He was surprised, but glad when Angel fell. Spike couldn't believe he let Angel's little lecture go as far as it did. He probably did because he expected Faith to know that Angel was going to lash out, and that she would just roll her eyes over it like he was anyone else. But, Angel was never just anyone else to any girl Spike ended up giving a toss about. It was Spike's curse. Well, at least he could have a good shag.

"Stop it!" Faith pleaded, "Angel."

She ran over to where the big poof had fallen. Bugger, he had finally learned how to take cave man down in one hit, and all he was going to get for it was upset women.

"I'm not the one who's forgetting who made me what I am!" Angel jumped up and hit Spike back. Spike grabbed Angel to take him down with him.

"You have nothing to do with what I am now," Spike said as they wrestled on the ground.

"Not me! You dumb-ass! Buffy. She made both of us into good men, well at least me, and now she's in trouble and you made sure you screwed all the Slayers you could before you came to tell me," Angel said as he got Spike on the ground.

"Didn't realize telling you made it all better. Wait a second. Seems it hasn't. In fact, it just has all seemed to get worse. You've seemed to have lost you're balls for fighting the good fight these days. But, I must admit it did have to take some balls to lecture me on the improper shagging of Slayers, at least I wait until they're of age," Spike said as he struggled to get up.

"I'll show you fighting balls," Angel roared and began to pound on Spike's face.

Then Spike felt sudden relief.

"Stop it!" Faith was pushing Angel away when Angel hit her.

Maybe it was because Faith hadn't healed or because Angel hit her really hard, but she fell hard. So hard it made even Angel stop and realize what a sodding Wanker he was being.

"Faith," Angel said in his best brooding voice, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she coughed.

Spike realized that Angel had sent the girl across the room. It was pretty bloody far from okay. Spike would like to see Buffy say it was okay after Angel had done that to her. Spike grabbed a brass bookend and smashed Angel in the head with it as he was getting up. He growled.

"Cock-sucking Wanker! Today is the last day you hurt one of my girls," Spike yelled.

Spike was sure now that he understood it better than ever. There was a light side and a dark side to everyone. Sometimes there were little bits of dark in the light, and sometimes the dark won over the light. Everyone's darkness and lightness was as different as their fingerprints. The light was the soul. Some people's darkness was as ineffectual as they were- like Harm. Some people's soul had been so strong that bits of light had to stick to them even after the soul had been taken, like Drusilla, as mad as she was she still knew something of love. But, some people's light just wasn't enough and they were sodding Wankers that hurt girls that love them and they should bloody die! No matter how much the girls wanted him alive.

"Spike, stop!" Faith yelled as Spike held a stake now over his Grand-Sire. He looked over at her to try to explain what he now understood in five words or less. This is when Angel started pummeling him again. Well, this was going to leave a mark.

Faith was trying to stop Angel again. Good girl as she was. She was pleading to him on the edge of tears. Knowing Angel, Spike knew this wasn't going to work, if anything he'd keep going to see how long it took to make her cry. How many men had Angelus killed in front of their women because it made the woman hurt worse? Helplessness is worse than death. But, Faith wasn't quite helpless. She grabbed hold of Angel's arms and held them. If Angel hurt her again he was a chapter in a history book. Spike was going to hit Angel as Faith held him.

"Separate!" he heard a firm little voice say. Spike felt himself go into a guided hurl until he was sitting against the wall.

He looked up and saw a lean slip of a figure. She was wearing shades of purple- light and dark. There was a long dark purple skirt, and a long light purple shirt with a smiling cat on it. Her eyes had gone a bit dark and angry, along with that and her autumn red hair her skin looked a deadly pale.

"Red, it's good to see you," Faith smiled now.

Spike saw that Faith was the only person who was standing where she had been. Angel was against the opposite wall.

"Yeah, but you should work on your message leaving skills : Hey, I almost died, and Spike brought me to his place, so now I think our only chance is Angel's company. Meet me there.' An address would have been nice," Red said with her hands on her hips.

"How could you not know where Evil incorporated is?" Faith asked with raised eyebrows.

"I never did business with evil. When I became it that one time I really didn't need to do business with anyone," she said.

Red looked like she was about ready to go out of business. Her face looked drawn. The dark circles under her eyes were so bad Spike thought that she had black eyes at first. The bags she had under them didn't help either. Spike was worried if Red was up to this challenge. Spike didn't see her new girl with her, the pretty mouthy brunette Slayer. Maybe she thought bringing one of those was enough. But, Spike was confused that instead of Harris tailing behind her she had Harm, Wesley, and the blue bitch.

"So, what's with all the near-killing? Oh God, did one of them turn evil too? Because, I'm really on the brink here," Red said wearily.

"No, they are pretty much like this all the time, and they're good," Harm told her, "I'm good too. I know, I know. I'm souly challenged, but so is Buffy now, so---"

"Get out of here before I smash you're face in," Red barked at Harm.

Harm opened her mouth to say something, when nothing came to her she closed it and stormed off.

"Hi guys," Willow smiled weakly, "I hope everyone has their ensoulling decoder rings."

"Willow, I don't understand," Wesley said.

"Um, that was just a joke. I'm trying to lighten the misery, I guess," Red said.

"No," Wesley said, "Why can't you just do the spell and give Buffy her soul back? Why do we have to capture her?"

That was a good question. Percy had his uses, though Spike was sure Red thought of that.

"Um.." Red said shakily.

"Tried that. It was a bust," Faith said as she played with some things on Angel's desk.

"Great," Angel muttered.

Spike felt again as he had when he first thought Buffy was dead again.

"But, there's no reason to lose hope. I figure if I get her closer to me, it has a better chance of working," Red said.

"We're talking about an ensouling spell and a vampire Slayer vampire, not a mobile phone and a receptacle tower. Maybe this can't be done," Spike said.

"You shut your fat mouth!" Red snapped.

"I know you're not talkin' about killing B," Faith said fiercely.

"Bloody Hell!" Spike gasped, "Of course not. We can just work with her the way she is. Get her, take her in, use some of that Wolfram and Hart technology to make it so she can't kill...But, no bloody chips in her head! Nothing painful."

"I knew coming here was a mistake," Red shook her head.

"Spike, you don't know," Faith said.

"That is the most idiotic plan I've ever heard, and I've spent a lot of time with Harmony lately," Wesley said.

"Harmony!" Red beamed suddenly, "You guys were able to take in and control Harmony. She' s pretty much the same person she was before with a small blood-lust problem, maybe."

"Right," Spike smiled, "and who doesn't have that."

"Sure," Red's tired face stretched into a smile.

"We're you guys calling me?" Harmony asked.

"Go away," Red ordered.

"You're all insane. That vampire isn't Buffy, and knowing her I highly doubt that she will be able to be controlled with out a soul," Wesley said.

"Since when do you know Buffy? And you can't have it both ways, if she isn't herself at all as a vampire how do you know she can't be controlled," Spike demanded.

"She's a Slayer that's been turned into a vampire. It's happened before and--- There's too much demon in her now. I am sorry," Wesley said.

"We have to get her soul back, Red," Faith said quietly.

"I do not understand. This Slayer, she is a warrior--like her," IIlyria gestured to Faith, "and now she has become a half-breed, like them. This will make her a more impressive fighter. This should be pleasing, since this...Slayer here seems to look injured."

"It's complex," Wesley answered IIlyria, "When a human becomes a vampire who they were ceases to be. Their soul is gone."

"This is what happened when the old Qwa'ha Xahan chose this shell for me. The shell--Fred--her soul was destroyed," IIlyria said. Spike actually saw her icy eyes blink. He didn't think they did.

"Great, just what we needed, questions from the anorexic 7 of 9. B's soul wasn't destroyed by some Borg bitch. We can still get it," Faith grumbled.

"And if it takes time we'll just keep watch on her here. She'll be a hell of a lot more knowledgeable and fun than Percy's toy," Spike said.

"IIlyria isn't evil," Wesley said.

"Right, she just killed Fred and wanted to raise an army of doom. She's a real great date," Spike said.

"How can these things be happening? The Hellmouth is gone. I made a whole army of Slayers. We were finally clear and free. We had the final battle. It was supposed to be over," Red said lowly.

"Our time is never up, Red. But, we can have drinking breaks, and I'm takin' one now," Faith said.

"You're leaving! How can you do that? How can you just leave?" Red gasped.

"Angel did," Faith sighed.

Spike looked and realized Angel was gone, and he was pretty sure he wasn't off trying to save the day.

"W-where did he go?" Red asked.

"Off to brood. Look Red, we can't do anymore tonight. Let Peaches have his time, and we'll start thinking about how to hook our girl. Why don't you try to get some sleep? Rest your magic aura or some such," Spike said, "As for me that drinking break sounds brilliant."

"Sorry, Brit. I kinda want to do this one solo," Faith shrugged.

"Why? You're not still sore I was gonna off your great hero that belted you across the room, are you?" Spike demanded.

"No," Faith rolled her eyes, "I'm still depressed that your Ex has been turned into a vampire that kicked my ass across the valley."

"Fair enough," Spike nodded, "But, it'll be all right, you'll see. Buffy always comes out on top...except when she came back wrong, but this won't be like that."

Spike found himself going straight home again. He really didn't feel like killing vampires for some reason. He thought of going drinking and going to that titty bar and saying "hi" to Sunshine, but he didn't. He wished Faith hadn't wanted to be alone. He had a lot of thoughts to suss out. He was sort of feeling up about the whole situation, as odd as that sounded. Sure, they weren't able to save Fred, and Wes had that creepy ice queen around because she remembered Fred's life. But, they would be able to get Buffy back. Spike even thought that now that Buffy had experienced darkness maybe, just maybe, she could really see Spike, and believe that he loved her. He knew that was a bit of a long shot, but it was possible.

First, he would have to work on a lot of things. Spike really wished that Fred was still alive, if anyone could find a way to give Buffy a soul, she would have. Now they'd have to rely on the brains of Red. He would have to make sure Red didn't give up. She was a bint whose emotions over-took her, and she could easily slide down the slope. He would have to make sure Faith didn't get herself killed, but he knew he wouldn't have to worry about her giving up. Angel could brood away, as long as the rest of them had his money to work with. Spike was pretty sure the minute he saw Buffy, Angel would come around. Then he would start barking out orders, and the whole sodding corporation would work on Buffy.

Spike was on the third level of Zelda when his phone rang. He recognized the number on his mobile as Wolfram and Hart. Angel, coming around already.

"Lemme guess, you've come out of your sad little catatonic state and now you want us to run around and do everything you say," Spike said slyly.

"That's totally it. How did you know? You always knew what I wanted even before I did. You're like a mind reader. It would be cool, if it wasn't so completely annoying," she said.

"Buffy!" Spike exclaimed standing up as if she entered the room. His stomach trembled with excitement. His eyes widened with surprise. He was pretty sure he had a semi-stiffer.

"Here I am, Spike," she said. He could hear her smile over the phone.

"So, how ya been?" he smirked.

"Dead...again and great. You?" she asked.

"Same as you, only not as great without you," he said.

"Hey, that kinda sounds like a guy that would bother to tell me he was alive," she said airily.

"I knew you were going to say something like that, but you want to know why I didn't?" Spike asked bitterly now, "You've got all your desires out runnin' free, and where's the first place you run? To him! But, it's gonna turn on you now."

"It is. Is it?" She asked coyly, "Like your brilliant idea to keep me in this building and feed me otter blood until what? I suddenly want my loser soul back? Really lame, that was your idea, right? Angel would never make me do that. He knows how bad I am at working a day job. You--you think of me as that fast food working loser."

"You know that's not true, love. You were too good for that job and you are certainly much too good for Wolfram and bloody Hart. You don't have to stay there if you don't want to," Spike closed his eyes.

"Damn straight," Buffy laughed, "I don't have to do anything I don't want to anymore, do I? "

"No, I suppose you don't," Spike answered, "But, the girl I know would want her soul back eventually, after you just get some time--"

"Only a loser would want that lame thing back. Spikey, I know you know how good it feels to be so free, have such power, don't you miss it?"

"I miss you," he said. He felt like he just realized he lost a limb after he'd been feeling the phantom leg. She was Buffy. She had sounded exactly like the girl he knew before until he brought up the pesky matter of her soul.

"Aw, I'm touched. But, is it me or the messed up loser you miss? It's such a fine line with you. Would you take me out of here? We can go away together. You and me, Spike. No more hiding like that lame soul made me do. You and me with all the power and the world at our feet. Of course, we'd have to do a little make-over madness and remove that soul. They are so not in this year," she said.

"What about Angel? Not getting the spark without the soul?" he asked, then his eyes went wide, "You didn't kill the poof did you?"

"No, that would be too nice. Let him be a slave to corporate life, since he picked it. Even when I had a soul I couldn't deny he was deciding to destroy himself in a half assed way. I'm so over doing stuff half-way, ya know?"

"What about Drac? You seemed to really fancy him giving him a second chance and all," Spike asked.

"Please, do we have to talk about that loser?" she laughed, "So, I went through a little cheesy Goth phase. You're the one still into punk."

Spike smiled wide, but then he frowned.

"What went wonky this time, Buffy? Why weren't you able to fight that Magic hack off?"

Buffy groaned, "You sound like Willow with the why, why whys' What? Do you guys want some story about how poor little Buffy, the leader of an Empire of Slayers felt more lonely and lost than ever before? How with her real friends scattered around the world and her lovers gone and her bitchy little sister finally grown she didn't know who she was? So, in enter Mr. Dark and Sexy and she couldn't fight him this time."

"Buffy, I'm sorry, love. You seemed--I mean, I thought--"

Buffy burst out laughing. "Oh man, you have totally lost your sense of humor. It wasn't like that, Spike! See, that's your problem you have to read so much into everything. The truth: Lame-ass came into my room, just like he did before. He was going crazy with the thrall, just like before, and he bit me, just like before. Only this time he knew not to stop. He took me right there. He already has his foreplay those years before."

Spike was silent.

"Life is bloody chaos," She said in a fake English accent, "There is no why.' Wanna join the party and come to get me? I have a present for you."

"I'm already almost there, love," he said.

Spike felt weird energy around Wolfram and Hart that he hadn't before. Had to be her. The place seemed empty. It was dark. No matter, he could see and smell too. Her scent was a bit different. She still had the smell of a perfumey wheat field, but there was something else- death. Of course, the smell led him into Angel's office.

"Hi," Buffy chirped.

"Hi," he said lowly and tilted his head at the sight of her.

She still had her long honey hair. It was down and fell in waves over her shoulders. She was dressed more like he remembered her doing in her secondary school days. Her shirt was white and frilly and showed off her cleavage with white frilly cut-off pants with lace trim. A sexy, simple, but high quality outfit.

"Been shopping?" he asked.

"Again, he knows. I hit Rodeo Drive the second I came, well, the third I came," she said.

"Had to visit Daddy and new step-mom first?" Spike smiled sadly.

"Well, you know, it had been forever. Step-Mom wasn't that new, really. She was years old, literally, I think she was about 5. Dad totally robbed the cradle." She rolled her eyes.

Spike laughed and bit his lip, and then walked closer to the huge cage she was in. He hadn't realized Angel's office was so big that it would have room for a guerilla cage and have all this room left over.

"Now she's gone," Spike said somberly.

"I am not gone. I'm right here," she said.

"No, Step-Mom, I mean, and Dad," Spike said.

"Oh yeah, sorry. I'm so used to everyone going You're not Buffy. Buffy's gone. Buffy wouldn't do this. Blah, blah, blah.' But, you, you know it's me Spike. You're the only one who gets that, maybe," she said.

"Yeah," he said quietly.

"So, why don't you help me out of this cage, sailor?" she smirked, "Between the two of us I know we can bust it wide open, this place too, and the world."

Spike walked up to the cage and rapped his hands around the bars. Buffy put her hands over his. They were cold. He shut his eyes.

"'Fraid I can't do that, love," he said, "And since when do you want the world?"

"Back away," she pouted, and he listened taking a few steps back. Of course, she'd be angry now.

"Since now!" she said and kicked the cage door, which fell off. She stepped out.

"Don't look so surprised," she said, "I was just testing you. You failed miserably, like a Blind potential against a Bringer. Ya know, we had a few blind Slayers? Weird huh? Easy kills."

"I'm not surprised," Spike said, "You think I'm a bloody idiot? I knew you were up to something. Like Angel was gonna lock you in a cage and then give you a mobile phone to call me. Like he wasn't gonna be the one to gloat and call me first if it all went down the way he wanted. Where is the old poof anyway? And where's Faith?"

"Oh, so that's how it is now? One minute you offer to make her a footnote in history and now she's your new obsession. You'd be really smart if you didn't have the attention span of a circus flea," she folded her arms.

"I forgot about that footnote in history thing. I suppose you'll want me to keep to my word on that," Spike rolled his eyes.

"In a way," Buffy said, "How do you know she's not already dead along with Angel? You think righteous little me wouldn't hurt them?"

"I know you'd hurt the Slayer, but you kept her alive before, and I smell her blood on you again, but it's only a little. Sadly, I don't think you'd hurt the poof--not really. You might just have put him on time out because he tried to hold you in that cage," Spike said as he followed her down the hall.

"Look at the big brain on Spike all of a sudden. Maybe hormones made you stupid before. You do still like me, don't you?" she pouted and then suddenly pulled him in for a huge open mouthed kiss.

"Ya know, you're not the only one who knows things. I knew you were here," she told him in between kisses, "Andrew has a big mouth, or at least he did."

He kissed back feeling his pain and hunger and satisfaction. She rapped her legs around his waste and undid his fly.

"I missed hurting you," she whispered biting his earlobe.

He opened his mouth in ecstasy and pushed her into the wall. He heard the wall crack a bit.

"And you sure know how to bloody do it, you bitch. I smell Angel's cum all over you," he grumbled fiercely as he pushed into her with all his strength.

"Had to," she murmured after she moaned.

"Bullocks!" Spike grunted, "Now that your soul's on vacation you can admit you wanted to."

"Fuck you!" she grunted and pushed him on the floor and straddled him.

She was going hard. Harder than ever before. She held his writs over his head with one hand as he wanted to break free to hold her.

"You think I don't know about Faith? Still with a soul you're an asshole! Loving it," she grunted then, "Not yet, you dickhead," as she could tell he was about to come.

Like old times, it was. Spike fought his will to come happily. She was loving that he was an asshole... Maybe now finally, when she came back from this she could love him, a little.

"Faith," she grunted, "Was she better?"

"Different," he grunted. She stopped riding him and looked down at him with big eyes.

"Don't stop," he grunted moving under her.

She held down his hips and stopped him. She could never do that before. Oh right, the vampire in her, extra strong.

"Different? That was where you were supposed to give a hearty: No, you were better, Buffy. You, you, you," she grumbled as his cock was still rock hard in her.

"Right," he rolled his eyes, "You were better Buffy, you, you, you. C'mon then."

"Do you love her now? Little Miss Redemption. Is that it?" she spat.

"Bloody hell!" he laughed, "I hardly know the girl. The whole reason we got it on in the first place was because we were in a total tizzy over the fact that you died."

"Oh, really?" a smile returned to her lips, "So, you just did her because she was a poor man's substitute for me. Couldn't you have just said that?"

Well, that wasn't exactly it, but he wasn't going to argue. Poor girl, she could be so insecure. She started riding him again. He stayed still and she really seemed to enjoy that. It took him a bit longer than her for some reason. It hadn't been that way before. Maybe the whole vampire thing made their timing wonky, or Angel. Right he'd go with Angel being minute man.

"Finally," she sighed.

"I love you, Buffy. Never stopped. Everything is gonna be all right," he smiled and stroked her hair.

"C'mon," she pulled him up off the ground and took him by the hand. Before he could zip up his fly they were running down the hall.

"What is it, love?" he asked.

"It's my present for you. You'll love it. Especially after what you just said," she said excitedly.

"What I said?" he smiled, "What I say? I love you?"

"Shhh. No more, Mr. talky mouth. Just be Mr. Thank you man," she smiled and kissed him before they got off the elevator.

Buffy took him past all these grey doors that looked like something out of a solitary confinement station in prison. She opened one with a fancy key card she pulled out of her pocket.

His eyes widened. He saw Faith strapped to a metal board. Her eyes were wide. She wasn't dead, but she wasn't moving--at all.

"Buffy," he said quietly, "What is this?"

"I take it from that look on your pretty little face, that you want her to be able to talk about all her little problems," Buffy sighed as she was un-strapping Faith, who fell like a rag doll when she undid the straps.

Spike caught the Slayer in his arms. His head was spinning with a million thoughts.

"Yes," Was all he could say. He wanted Faith awake or out of whatever had been done. He knew that much. He'd have to take it one step at a time.

"Great," Buffy said and pulled something out of her pocket. It was a hypodermic. She injected Faith with it as Spike held her.

"I'd love to hear what she has to say. Maybe she'll remind us of your other girlfriend. "

Spike just stood with his mouth open as he held Faith. Had he just held the Slayer while Buffy had put something awful in her?

"Buffy--" Spike began. He felt Faith tremble in his arms. She wasn't cold at all. She was terrified.

"Stop it," Faith said quietly as she clutched him tightly now.

"I'm not--I didn't," Spike tried to explain he had no part in this. But maybe he did now. He wouldn't hurt Faith.

"Stop it," she said again as she looked at him with terrified eyes, "Don't let it happen. You have to stop it."

Faith wanted him to stop something. What? Buffy being a vampire? He couldn't do that. But he could do his best to stop Buffy from hurting her.

"What...what did you do to her?" he stammered as he mindlessly followed Buffy down the hall with the other Slayer in his arms.

"A sensitive soul like you wouldn't want to know. After I was done I put her in this room that makes you dead, but alive. I guess she's a little freaked. I told her I was leaving her in there forever if you didn't want her." Buffy said.

"This...this is where they put the bloody reaper," Spike realized.

"Who?" Buffy asked.

"Bad man. Tried to steal my soul. Long story, love. Angel said he put him in a living-hell room where he would keep on living, but be essentially dead. Suspended life." Spike explained, then he turned to face her feeling his face tighten, "How did you know about these rooms?"

"A guy tried to take your soul and you fought it, oh Spike, what will we do with you?" Buffy rolled her eyes.

"No! Stop this. Kill me. Please kill me," Faith cried out suddenly.

"It's all right, love. It's over now. I've got you now," Spike pleaded. Did Faith think he would let her suffer more? That he was in on it?

"Oh, this is so sweet; bonding with your new crazy ho'. Everything is coming together . Now follow Mommy to get Daddy," Buffy said sweetly.

"What did you say?" Spike gasped.

"You'll love this--love it," Buffy assured. She opened a door with another key card and Spike saw Angel there. He was bloody and looking broken, but Spike could tell that he had been working at the metal straps that held him to the table.

"B, please, you can stop this now. it's not too late," Faith said.

"Damn, she's still lucid. I knew I should have let her bake in there a little more. I was always way too soft on her and Dawn. Time to get harder on both of them, wouldn't you say?" Buffy asked him.

Spike just stood. All he could do was hold the other Slayer to him.

"Oh, what do you know? You are such a softie pants. We gotta bring out the hard stuff, one way or another," She said as she walked by the table and rubbed Angel's crotch.

"B, don't do this. Let Angel--let us help you," Faith said.

Spike sensed she wanted to get down from his arms and he put her down. He had become a body that was doing what was needed as his mind was too busy spinning to talk.

"Help? You were the one that always needed help, Faith. Not me, I was just a loser that liked having it around. For the first time I don't want help. Tell me you all don't miss it? The clarity, the power. Anyone? Anyone? Oh c'mon guys gimme a little something here!" Buffy scoffed to them as they were silent. Her sing-song voiced filled the room. "Oh. Mr. Power Lunch himself is gagged. I always loved him, just not the stuff that came out of his mouth," she said and ungagged him. "But, maybe the CEO has something enlightening to add."

"Buffy, don't do this. Let Spike and Faith go. I know it's me you want to deal with; me you've come for. You didn't even know Spike was here. Faith was just doing her job. Just let them go and deal with me," Angel said. And there was a good argument for gagging him. All of this, and Angel thought it was all about him.

"You and your fucking deals! We've been there and did that an hour ago, and you did business all right, but you didn't hold up to your end. You wouldn't give up the soul, even though I gave it up to you. What's the matter, Angel? You can't have a moment of perfect happiness unless you're on top?"

"No, it's because you're not Buffy," Angel's tone was bitter now.

"Not this again. Men, I swear. I guess I felt enough like the old Buffy for you to get it up, but just not to commit yourself to me. Same ol' Angel. Maybe you're just like sonny boy here. I go away for a while and you find a new whore. Only yours is really dead. Yep, I heard she really drew it out too. Just like Cordy. You should've seen her twelve hour death scene in the school play. She just had to be in the spot-light as long as possible."

"You have no right to even mention Cordelia!" Angel was in vampire face now.

"Excuse me?" Buffy gasped and then she turned into vampire face. Spike moved back a little and Buffy smiled at him, but continued to talk to Angel. "I gave you Cordy. I gave you this company. I gave all of you everything, and now I have the power to do it the right way. We'll find a way to make you happy."

Then she straddled him as he was strapped to the table

"You'll never make me happy, not like this!" Angel insisted.

"It's okay baby, that's why I love you. You know It's about power. It's always been about power. I've known that for a while now. But, now nothing is stopping me from taking it all."

"I'll stop you. I won't let you do this in her name. I'll make it--" Angel was forced to stop as Buffy re-gagged him. Spike smiled a little. He regained his thoughts.

"Yeah, okay. I'm done with that. God, I totally see what you mean now, there is a boring table lamp side to him. Well, that'll be over soon. I have my assistant looking up ways to get the real man out of him, since we can 't do it the old fashioned way," Buffy said.

"Ah, ya don't know what you're doing', love," Spike sighed.

"Why?" Buffy frowned, "You think if I was better he would have gotten a happy? I only got to do him that once, well, twice, with that dream thing, so maybe he likes different stuff than what I do. Do you know what he likes?"

"Yeah, like you said he likes bloody power. If you bring Angelus out he's not gonna want to share it with the likes of you, so you don't wanna do it," Spike said

"You mean, he won't wanna share it with the likes of you, and your needy weak wimpy ass, but don't worry I'm giving you something that will keep you occupied. You're little counterpart there, the other half of your codependency. Only she'll be as strong as me--physically. So, I have to mix her up with a side of crazy first to balance the scales. You'll be a great Kurt and Courtney to our Jon and Yoko though."

"You hack little bitch. What happened? Did too much blood from Drac get into your veins? This is your big bad plan? To be Darla Junior? The sequel to 'Vacation' with new actors playing the bloody kids? Please, it's been done," Spike sneered and it was a sneer that came to his lips honestly.

"No it hasn't, not my way! Little Miss Seen it All and me, we will be Vamps that have Slayer strength too. You think I'm like that Dora vampire or whatever her name was? I could take her down with my eyes closed. She may have made Angel, but she let him get away. I'll never do that, not again! I have all the power now to say who goes and who stays--not him, not you--me. And please, outside of men the girl had no taste. She wore school girl outfits, in public, I don 't mean in bed."

"Wow that sounds really bloody great, Ms. Stienham. I mean you're plan, not the whole school girl outfit in pub--Anyway, what you don't realize is how much of a sad loser you're still being."

"Say that again, William," Buffy glared. She hopped down from Angel finally and all five feet of her got in Spike's face

"I mean, it's all still about us boys. What's the first thing you do? You leave a whole Army of powerful girls you could have made into your own army of doom, and you come racing here to Daddy and Angel and me to give us all what for, to put us under your thumb and--" he interrupted himself laughing, "On top of that you go after and torture the one girl that could hold a candle to you and you find a way to put her in her place and hold her under your thumb. If you were really Buffy, if you were really anything but a needy sore loser that lost all her men, you'd have turned the whole army of Slayers and your all powerful witch friend and made all the men in the world your slaves...You'd be giving the Republican party dog collars. You wouldn't be here tryin' to shag me and your first back into evil, which when he gets there shares with no one by the way. No matter what."

"Now that's some kick ass feminism, dude," Faith laughed, "Spike' s right. I know Angelus. He won't give it up to know one, no how. He has to be made."

"So, then I'll do that, then. Just like I'll make you...crazy," Buffy smiled. Buffy went into vampire face again, as she threw Faith with what was probably all her strength through the window into the next office.

"Faith," Spike called to her. He didn't see her land in the other room. He went to look, "If you killed her--"

He began and then he felt himself get thrown.

"You'll what? Bleed all over me? Cry about it? Poor Spikey. I was still debating what to do with you. Still can't be a vampire, still can't be a man. You're nothing. The biggest sell out of all time. A vampire that fought for that disgusting weak soul that's nothing but pain. Even when you didn't have it you were weak," she told him as she hit him to hurt him just enough to keep him alive.

"You loved pain. You had to love me. You had to save my sister! If you really loved me you'd let her die, let me die, saved me from pain," her voiced had changed into a tone that made him cry. He was sure if she noticed she'd make fun of him.

"So, you die for real this time. I wonder where I'll put Faith then. If I didn't already kill her. Hmm. I really don't know my own strength. Where is she? Did I toss her out the window. Well, I guess you'll go with her. See, my plans are flexible"

"Oh, C'mon. No one's as flexible as me. Here I am, B," Faith said as she sliced Buffy's arm with a sword as big as she. "Found the damnedest toy down the hall. This place kicks ass."

Faith was going to take her second slice when someone knocked her down. A blonde girl, she kicked Faith when she was down too.

"Shit! You know how much this outfit cost?" Buffy grumbled as she looked down at her bloody shirt.

"Why didn't you just kill the clerk?" Harmony asked as she stood where Faith had been.

"My lovely assistant, everyone," Buffy smiled, "Never kill the clerk. Like I wanted Rodeo drive to shut down for days? I used my dead Dad's money."

"That is so smart. You're the coolest, boss," Harmony said

"Harm? What are you doing? You told her about the death rooms?" Spike gasped.

"Duh," Harmony rolled her eyes, "I could see in three seconds when Angel brought her in and she brought him down where the winning team was. Can't you, Blondie bear? I thought you had a huge thing for her. You're over it!"

Harmony smiled and then her face fell.

"Oh, I get it," she said, "You only like the Slayers when they're good. You have a whole good girl complex. You like her now."

Harmony pulled Faith up by the hair.

"Get off of her you miserable bitch," Spike snarled.

"God!" Harmony stamped her foot, "What is with you? Can I kill her, boss?"

"Fine," Buffy folded her arms, "He's a man. They never want what is right in front of them."

"You got that right!" Angel said.

The Git was finally free. It took long enough. He threw Harmony off of Faith. He hit Buffy who fell back and looked at him with a frown. She sprung up and hit him across the room. Faith still had some fight in her. Spike couldn't believe it. She had found her sword and sliced Buffy's torso. Buffy looked down and frowned.

"Ooo, Mommy. That itches," She said and elbowed Faith in the face.

Spike saw Angel getting up and he was running at Buffy from the back, so Spike decided to run at Buffy from the front. She had knocked them both down using their own speed against them.

"Now," Buffy said, "Is there still any questions about who holds the power here?"

"See what I mean, Blondie Bear?" Harmony sighed, "Resistance is furtile or whatever. Can I kill the Slayer now? Can I have Blondie Bear instead? You said if I proved myself I could be in."

"You still haven't found away to take Angel's soul," Buffy stated.

"Oh yeah," Harmony chirped, "I forgot with all this fighting. I did! That's why I came in here. Look, a black magic spell that'll take it. Cool, huh?"

Buffy opened the book that Harmony gave her hungrily with wide-eyes. She looked like a little girl who got her new red shiny bike for Christmas.

"Cool," she said trying to maintain her excitement.

"Buffy, don't do this, Spike and Faith are right. Angelus could never love you. He'd betray you. If you want someone to love you stay here with me, we can work this out," Angel said.

The sod was actually jealous of himself. He didn't want his other half to have her. As much as he said she wasn't Buffy, he was still trying to save her for himself.

"Boss, can I kill the Slayer now, please? She keeps giving me dirty looks from the floor," Harmony said.

Buffy grunted in frustration. She made a quick motion and Spike saw Harm turn to dust. She never even had time to be surprised. Spike wasn't surprised either. Buffy had gotten everything she wanted from the bimbo minion.

"Yeah, like I was going to spend my immortal time with someone I hated in high school," Buffy said, "Harmony may have had better taste in clothing, but crazy Faith would just be so much more fun. Don't ya think?"

Buffy looked at the book and cleared her throat. She began reciting the spell. It was Latin, Bloody Ancient Romans had a spell for it all. Harm must have got her a book where it was spelled out phonetically.

"No, I can't go back," Faith cried, "Spike, will you kill me. Kill me after she turns me, please. I can't be evil again."

Spike found her on the floor and held her hand. No, if she was sired he wouldn't kill her. He didn't know what he would do. Maybe he would try to have a go of it like Angel had with the soul.

"You were never evil, love," he told Faith. He was sure of it. Especially after today.

"Would you two keep it down. Like this stuff isn't hard enough to read with out your yapping. They both yap far too much. We'll buy them ball gags," Buffy said to Angel on the floor.

"Ow! What was that? Figures reading this would give me a headache," Buffy said as she stopped reading the Latin.

Then Red came in with Wesley in tow. He was reading a spell in Romanian. It was Angel's bloody spell! They would get Buffy back! He never should have doubted Red.

"You! I thought I made you crazy when I killed your bitch dyke girlfriend, but I guess we all knew she was rebound chick. Faith was probably more upset about her death than you. Hmm, what's that about? I'm sure I'll see," Buffy said.

"It'll be okay, Buffy. I already forgive you. We all love you," Red said.

Wesley went on reading.

"Oh, Will, it's so sad. You could be so cool and instead you hang out with such-- Whose that? Oh shit, it's Wes!" Buffy laughed. Then she held her head like it hurt again.

"C'mon, Will. This is funny. Wes, the Dork Watcher is gonna curse me with a soul. You're doing this to be funny, right?" Buffy asked.

"No, he can curse you; he doesn't love you. I can't," Red said firmly now.

Buffy reached for Willow and she got a magical binding around her.

"C'mon Will," Buffy grunted as she struggled, "I thought we'd been through this before. Count Dorkula taught me enough to get over your lame protection spells."

Buffy closed her eyes and the binding seemed to break around her like glass and disappear. She smiled sadly.

"Don't get you, Will. Never did really. I mean, you could be the Goddess of this whole stinking world and instead you hold back," Buffy said as she grabbed Wesley by the throat.

She was thrown off by something. Spike rose to see IIlyria standing over Buffy who was on the floor mouth open in surprise.

"Who the hell are you?" she said rising.

"The Goddess of this whole stinking world," IIlyria said.

"Yeah, like I haven't heard that before," Buffy rolled her eyes.

She hit IIlyria back and she actually fell. Buffy grabbed the sword Faith had used and went to behead the blue bitch. Smart girl, Spike thought, if you don't know what something is it's best to behead it. IIlyria grabbed Buffy's arm and held it still. Buffy's eyes went wide with shock of Blue Bitch's strength.

"You are the most impressive fighter I've seen in this world. The Qwa'ha Xahan will do his magic and then you will still have your power but you will not be so detrimental to the other warriors. Then, you can fight for the humans together and you will teach me more about the hopefulness of this world that I am destined to be in," IIlyria said as she held Buffy's arm frozen.

Wesley continued with the spell.

"No!" Buffy cried, "You bitch! Who the fuck are you? I won't be some minion under you. I'm the Slayer."

"No, Buffy is the Slayer. You're not anything, and when the spell is over she'll be back with us," Angel said.

"No, Angel," Buffy pleaded, "Help me! I can't go back. I won't! You know how it is, really. I'm finally free."

"He is helping you, B," Faith said.

"No," Buffy said through gritted teeth, "I am not you! I am not going to spend my life on my knees to everyone because for one second I knew what my real power was."

"It's not like that, love. You'll see. We can all really be in the same boat now. We'll be together."

"I don't wanna be with you. You're weak!" Buffy spat at him.

"Angelus, please, I love you. You're the one. You know, you were cursed. Make them stop. This is the only way we can be together. Don't you love me?" She cried to Angel.

"Yes, I do. It's because I really love you that we can't---" Angel stopped like that in mid sentence.

Spike thought perhaps that Buffy had thrown a stake at him or something due to the look of frozen pain on his face.

Wesley had stopped the Romanian chanting. Was he done? Was it over?

"Nooo!" Red was crying. Spike looked and Buffy was gone.

"What happened?" Spike asked. He saw IIlyria holding the sword.

"She turned to dust," IIlyria said, "Where has she gone?"

"You bitch!" Spike roared, "You dusted her!"

"No, Spike," Faith said in a drone-like voice, "She dusted herself. She put her throat through the sword."

"You need to cry," Spike pleaded as he held the dark haired girl's hand as she stood in his doorway.

"I need to go. Everyone has done enough of it for me. Even Angel has done enough for me and him. Never knew a Brit could be so sensitive," she told him.

"Not sensitive just honest," he said.

"Right a thoughtless bastard, I remember," Faith smiled.

"Right," he said.

"It wasn't her. She died that night in her room with that Euro-Fag Bastard I swear vengeance on. That's the popular view," Faith said.

"Right," Spike sighed.

"Right that's the popular view or right that wasn't her?" Faith asked.

She saw that the question surprised him. Faith had refused to examine any of this. She just hung about making sure no one else offed themselves. Now that it seems they wouldn't she was going.

"C'mon, honest bastard, tell me what you think," she commanded.

"I think it was her. Her darkest half and nothing else. Something I thought I knew, but really only saw hints of when she had that beautiful soul."

"Oh, well, there you go," she said and tears filled her eyes.

"There I go, makin' you spill salt now. I thought you should do it, but I never volunteered to be the instigator," he said.

"You're nothing else if not the instigator," she laughed as she wiped her eyes, "You saved our lives stirring B--stirring the vamp up like that sayin' that it was all about us. It bought us time."

"Never thought about it. Just thought I was shooting my gob off , but okay," he said.

She laughed and touched his arm.

"Do you want to hear something awful?"

"Couldn't hurt now," he said.

"I cried because I was happy you said it was her, part of her, in that vamp, because after all was said and done, she really wanted me. She thought she needed me. I was somethin'" Faith said again with tears in her eyes.

"I'll top you. Sometimes I cry because she didn't want me. She wasn't sure she needed me. I was nothing. It was Angel--Angelus that was everything," he sighed. He was over crying, about that part anyway.

"You're stupid." She said this simply, "Don't you realize you were the most important piece. You were her heart. That was why she was so mad at you. You chose to get a soul and care and that killed her."

"I killed her?" He tilted his head painfully.

"No not--look when I went all psycho chick it was her I hated most, because she was everything that reminded me about how hard it was--and how good it was--to really really love people. Not that I really am an expert on it now, but, do you understand, or do I just sound insane?" she asked.

"Bit a both," he said.

"I don't know how I feel about these Angel-like one sentence blurbs from you," she laughed.

"Well, here's another. Why don't you stay?" he asked.

"I can't," she looked off at nothing, "I would only remind you of her. You deserve better...Hell, I've had enough therapy to say I'm somthin' and I deserve better."

"I'm an honest bastard, right?"

"Right."

"So, more simple blurbs. You're everything. You deserve everything, and if you stay, in time, I can give it," he said.

"I can't think of a snappy response to that one," she swallowed hard, "So, I should go."

"Expected as much. Where will you be?" he asked as he felt the inevitable ripping in his chest.

"Dunno," she sighed, "Now I'm blurbing. This is turning into a Brit good-bye after all."

"Right O'. Better hop on then," he laughed, "Good-bye." He said and kissed her forehead.

Spike was home again. He hadn't patrolled in weeks. He hated to think about how the vampire related death count may have risen, so he didn't.

He heard a soft knock on his door. Now what? Lorne here to say how (basically) everything was going to be all right. There was a Yank word if he ever heard one "basically." What the hell did that even mean? It was still day light, so this knock couldn't be anything worthwhile, but he was thinking too much, so he opened the door.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," he looked at her sideways to try to figure what had gone wrong. Why was she here?

"So, here I am," she said.

"Here you are," he repeated.

"The Dude just won't start with the talking again. Maybe this is a good thing," she smiled.

"I have something," he said, "So here you are--rock me like a hurricane or here you are passing through? Because if it's the passing through one I was waiting for this and I have a big brassed off speech about how I won't be used for parts and service. But, I should let you know that is probably complete bullocks and I will be used for parts and service, but you will have to put up with a lot of bitching about it until you leave yet again."

"Wow," she nodded and smiled and licked her lips, "Um, I don't think I could take your hardcore bitching ...So, here I am--rock you like a hurricane, but if you start to be a hardcore bitch I am so outta here."

"No see, I'm only a hardcore bitch if you go to leave," he explained with a smirk he tried to squash.

"And if I stay? You're what a regular bitch?" she asked.

"Pretty much, but so are you, right?" he said.

"Pretty much," she sighed.

"Should be fun then," he said.

END


	2. Chapter 2

Here I am- Chapter 2- "Opposites" 

Kill. Destroy. Hurt. No, don't hurt anymore nothing should hurt--could--ever again. That was what she must do and she would do it. It was all so clear, like coming up out of a pool your cousins pushed you down in for wicked long and you came up and breathed like you were doing it for the first time. You had to kill them. Kill them all. That was the only thing that made it stop. Stopping, it was the only way you could live. But, you couldn't live not ever. But, you couldn't stop, not ever. Never stop to stop it. Everything was all the same. Opposites, death, life, good, evil, desire, sacrifice, Slayer, vampire: they all were the same so they erased each other. Objects turned into what you wanted them to be, what you needed. A hair brush was a sword, her fists blood. Screaming nonsense was talking about how it all made sense:

"Head and heart. Don't stop until there's dust. Dusts, fists, speed. Slayer is a vampire, a vampire is a demon. Slayer is a demon. The Demon must die. Cut its head off, that'll kill it."

She held the sword to her/the demon's neck and kept hitting/slicing for the blade to go through. She had done this before, killed an evil Slayer, herself, or maybe she hadn't. Didn't matter. It was all the same.

"No, love. No, you aren't a vampire. She didn't get you."

Talking gently, not hurting, tackling, holding, crushing, hit or being hit the same. Hurting, hurting, hurting…

Him, with golden white halo hair was a vampire that would give her everything. Pleasure that was so begging-for-more good it came around to begging to stop or go, pain, terror, and death. Opposites.

"She'll never get you. I've got you. I love you."

"Hate!" she cried and laughed, "Know you, know you hate."

Arms around her like death, not letting go, never letting go. Pummels inside/outside, Slayer Killer/Lover, riding so hard to break in Heaven/Hell. Love you…

"Hate you," she hissed and felt the arms loosen and hit the tender hard face.

"That's it, hate me. Hit me. I'm the bloody demon. The vampire!"

Him, now wore a vampire face, but it didn't go together. Not opposites/not the same. She looked at the golden white/red blood man/demon with her eyes widening and squinting, her head straight and tilted and he wouldn't wash clean. Like Yeager puke on your only pair of black jeans. Like your only doll stained with mom's constant party waste. Not fair! Those were her only jeans, her only toy, all she ever wanted.

"I fucked you up. I ruined you," she said.

"No, baby," he said, "I'm built for getting bloody. I heal. I heal but you do it better than me. Better than anyone. You've gotten so much better already. Now you just have--"

"Better than you. Better than anyone," she smiled; he wasn't ruined, "Under me and over me all the time. Holding The Slayer in place."

"Well," he smiled, face broken up, opposites all true, happy/sad, impressed/disappointed love/hate with her, all with her, "I never quite put it that way."

She pounced on him and laughed because he now made a less broken face that made him look like a sad doll with sharp edges. Bodies together. But, with that face she could see how he was separate from the place around them, the room. She liked this room it smelled like orange spice tea and Marlborough like:

"Home, flavor country," she laughed.

"Yes, we're home and--do you want a smoke?" he asked.

She shook her head "You," she laughed and then her brain went side-ways like a shit-eating grin.

"Know, you," she snickered, "You're that vampire, asshole, Sweet-on-Her."

Names tasted too bad to come out. She could just say the letters or something else different.

"Don't call me that, that Sweet on--" he made a silly sour face under her.

"I much prefer 'asshole' to the latter, love. Can we just go with 'asshole?' I 'm not sweet on he--I 'm sweet on you now. You got that. I'd say just call me 'Sweet' but there's a bugger of a demon who fancies musicals that already has--"

She touched his soft/hard spot and he made a new broken face. He bent down under her like clay. She laughed. He was a riot. Serious killing machine. Safe. Cold but so warm.

Desires were reality. She ran her hands on his black shirt and he pulled it up and the shirt was gone, it became skin. He pulled his arms around her soft too. She licked up his chest and ran his hands over it. It tasted good, but felt sad.

"Soft and hard. Opposite and the same, whole and broken inside," she said.

"I'll fix it," he whispered, "Just give me time. We're making progress, getting it together. Now that you're talking---"

"No more talking. It makes your mouth sad. Taste me like poems," she said.

"All right," he said and he cupped his mouth around her and it sucked her insides in and made them all cool and soft.

"Oooew," she said as her mouth smacked away, "Wicked cool! Again."

He smacked his lips all over her face and it made her laugh.

"No," she laughed and he did too. He was a silly little puppy, "Again on the mouth and pull."

"Keep telling me what's inside of you, what you want, and I'll make it happen. Then, they'll be no stopping you."

He kissed her pulling and tasted and licked to be tasted. This time she had been waiting. Opposite/Sameness came back in a tidal wave. Weak/strong, want/have, take/give. Her body knew its purpose and so did his.

"Talk to me," he needed no breath and breathed hard as she kissed and felt.

"Tell me what you want," he said.

He tilted her back on top of him and she felt the hard floor slowly pushing into her knees.

"Make it soft," she said and she laughed when he wrinkled his forehead up all confused.

"Hard," she said hitting the floor, "Make it soft under me like you."

She saw him start to smile, but before it could finish he was kissing, pulling, caressing, cupping her as her wrapped her body around his and they floated up as he stood. She felt something soft and firm under her whole body. A bed. He made that? She knew she was forgetting her mission. Kill the vampires, the demons. But, she couldn't find any. The one inside took off somewhere scared, so she wasn't scared, wasn't a demon.

"Keep telling me what you want," he said right in her ear and then wiggled his tongue inside.

"You remember this?" he asked and did it again and stopped and said, "Tell me."

She remembered this. She shivered and made a noise. She remembered shivering and making noises and wanting to die, but this was the opposite. It didn't matter if it sounded the same.

"Remember," she said as she gripped him and his hands ran down her body, "The same and opposite."

"You remember the first time, don't you? How good it was, even when we were falling apart. I remember a lot more and I can use it to put you back together. I know just how to make you feel so good, but I still want you to tell me. You want more?"

"More," she could feel her heart racing but she wasn't scared.

She pressed his lips to his and his hands stopped traveling down her body. Before she could object her wet spot felt free with air. He had pulled the clothes away to softness. His hands were outside her basement where it flooded and dripped and tingled and puckered like her mouth as they kissed.

"Meet me in the basement," she said and pushed his fingers inside of her.

"Yes, you remember this," he whispered and touched and didn't touch stopped and went. Opposites touched, moved, stood still, separated. She went inside out. This wasn't what a Slayer was and it was everything a Slayer was. It was feeling nothing bad everything good, slowly building all at once. It was being strong and screaming soft and deep.

"I'm the only one that could do this with two fingers and get five stars, you said. Not that you would remember saying that. That was a different world."

"Remember a different world," she yelped and sounded sad, but she was so happy.

Holding him down to keep him up. She whimpered and screamed hard and ugly now, and felt beautiful. She remembered mouths, fangs, his mouth everywhere. He kissed her face and she had some tears and laughed so hard.

"I know you. You're from the basement," she laughed, "Came down to you. You wanted me."

"Yes," he gasped, "You remember. You remember I was in Bu--You remember."

He had gotten too soft now. Stopped everything. She had scared him, but she remembered they both had been scared before.

"Shhh," she said, "It's okay. It will only hurt for a second, then you'll start to like it. I promise it gets better the second time. You burned. She hurt you, but you came back. You're a Champ, Sweet-on-Her."

"Don't call me---Never mind me!" he pushed out his chin; he was still scared, "I could give a rat's ass if you stopped getting these fun facts about me that have sod all to do with you."

"Tell me about you," he whispered pleading, "Who are you? Tell me you know who you are."

"I'm not The Slayer, but I am. Should protect, but I kill. Should kill, but I protect," she said and her voice was only flat.

"No, you are The Slayer. The only living true Chosen One. Tell me," he demanded.

This again. She was getting bored. She sighed.

"Sleek and sharp Mary. Goes to school, eats her vegetables. They all squeeze her so tight. They don't know they break her, but she can take it. Take it and kill and live. Salon fresh. Mom loves the good girl so she bought her killer princess hair. The family is so proud it makes you puke. She's the bonnie." she told him.

"No," Brit shook his head. The Watcher was bummed. She had to try harder.

"Not her. I don't want he--I want you. You know that. You must know that. What can I--Tell me who you are!"

The frustrated Watcher, shakes her shoulders, her head is the snow globe. He wants to see the South Boston exhausted colored snow fall. He rattles her chains. That's what boss man Watchers do. She does it back worse. Shows him her teeth disguised as a smile.

"Oh, this one. Dirty stupid whore," she answers, "She gets detention, swallows principals. Naturally, they let dirty girl drowned, push her down. There's no time to bathe her, tuck her in. She wouldn't stay in bed so mom fell down a lot 'till she couldn't get up again."

She sat back on the bottoms of her bare feet. She's had this question on tests before with cute Brits. He really seemed to care about the answer. This time she smiled because she knew she was getting it right. She would blow him away; please him. She'll use a line she heard somewhere. They like stuff spit at them they've already chewed.

"I don't think a woman's really a woman unless she's a blond, you know?" she couldn't hold the smile, "Brown hair all dirty against spun gold. That's why I'm dead. Did you kill me? I think it was you."

Definitely bored now. She dove on him and it felt better on the soft bed he made. She was on top of Sweet-on-her and she was going to touch him and not touch him all day and make sure he didn't get scared. She had to protect and not kill, or kill and not protect. It was the same.

"No!" he grumbled, but he was always mad and never really mad. She remembered that, knew it, liked it.

She was rolled on the bottom but wasn't it really the top? She went to push him forward knowing he'd bend like clay. But, she felt his arm push her down, but it became a strap. His hand pushed up on her chest and it felt sore, but it really clawed at her and scraped jaggedly along her insides for everything. Or was it the opposite?

"Tell me who you really are! Tell me, Faith!"

Faith? There was a blond vampire who had strapped her down to a table and teased her and clawed out everything. She wasn't the perfect girl anymore that Faith would die to save. She was nothing, and that meant faith was nothing. Nothing but death and pain and trapped and…No faith! No more faith ever again.

She screamed and screamed and fought with everything, nothing. She was about to twist the vampire's head off when it screamed: "No!"

And she saw its face and it wasn't that blond nothing-girl vampire at all but… Something heavy as a wrecking ball held her on one side while she quickly got held down on the other with a group of little weights to make up one big one.

"Don't do it!" the very bloody halo haired Sweet-on-Her said.

Suddenly she felt it, that horrible pinch that ended before she could fight. NO! NO! NO! It was happening again. She threw off the wrecking ball weight and the group of the others, kicking and hitting as hard as she could at them. She felt to the floor too scared to scream or breathe. She heard a horrible sound like an animal being killed and she saw people around her. Some were bloody like Sweet-on-her and one of them just laid there eyes open looking dead, but maybe it was worse and they did it to him , the thing they just did to her. It would take a second to take, like all things they did to her she didn't want to talk about. But she had to talk now.

"Please," she struggled to say to them. The paralyzing brain folding juice was already working; at least when she talked the dying animal stopped crying.

The blonde vampire nothing girl wasn't there. They were all men. The vamp bitch had sold her, pimped her. No! She could still feel her soul. There was still time. Had to be weak to be strong or strong to be--all opposites had to be true for anything to be true.

"No! Please let me out. I'll do anything. I--I can't sit frozen in the room alone. It's not a living cell. It's frozen solid. It shrinks to nothing! Please, don't let me out to be with them alone!" she begged them.

"It's not what you think, Faith," her new/old pussy/rugged Watcher was one of the men.

"You're not in The Infinity Room. They didn't inject you with Eternal Depravation. It's just a sedative. You'll sleep and be with Spike."

She went to her knees and hugged her old Watcher's legs. Master was servant. Didn't it always go opposite like that?

"NO! NO! I'll be good. Please, don't flush me away. I'm not a piece of--"

Yelling interrupted her. Fucking rage. Fear. Fear. Fear.

"Buggering, Sod! Are you out of you're mind? You shouldn't come in here at all, let alone with a hypodermic. If you ever do it again you're going to wish you lived in my time-line where you became numb from the waist down. She saved your life there, Pryce. She saved all of you."

"Right, and as I've told you," Watcher voice, disgusted, "I'm trying to save hers. When Buff--when the vampire injected her and left her in--"

"--those bloody rooms I got her out in time. But, not in this buggering time-line. In this time-line I bollixed it up and SHE threw her in there for hours and made it so I couldn't--I tried to get to her. I punched my sodding hands to pulp. You were the one that got her out with sodding magic," voice so mad and scared, "And it's not that I want to appear ungrateful but every time you come in here like Captain Jack, she thinks that her body is being taken down there. She thinks her mind is going to Hell. She thinks her soul---She thinks I'll turn her into a vampire because that's what the bitch wan--"

She had to fight. So afraid, whore. So fucking afraid, bitch. She heard the screams of the fighting dying animal again. She called to him the only one she could see blurry and sliding.

"S-Sweet! Sweet! Sweet-on-Her!" she screamed.

"I'll be the worst. The best. You bite; I suck," she warned/begged him, "Five by five counts down to nothing. The rocks I stand on shrink to less than zero. Frozen inside! Evil again. Please, kill me. Please--"

"It's all right, love. It's all right, "she could hear him, blurry, "I'd never hurt you."

Fucker. He betrayed her. She was alone, always alone.

"Kill me!" she cried. He was touching her.

"No!" he said.

She fought in the blurry to run. She felt firm cold hands pull her off the floor from behind. She could feel that this wasn't a man or a demon. They were strong and angry and knocked everyone away. Cold and faraway hands, but there. They knew her good. They knew Faith. Oh, Faith knew who this was. And oh, she was going to be pissed. Wicked pissed. She'd get the shit beat out of her.

"Faith, you must stop this behavior. This isn't the way a superior warrior would act," she said in that stupid fake voice she saved for when Faith bratted-out in public.

She didn't want Faith. She'd hunt her down like a dog. She hated her and loved her.

"I'm sorry, Ma. I had some shots. Only some turned into half a bottle," Faith sighed, but then she got pissed too, "Figured I'd start drinking and passing out early just like y--"

Faith felt herself fall. Only instead of being kicked to get up the cold skinny arms were around her, holding her, not dragging her. Holding Faith right for once.

"Just what I needed," a voice spoke Faith's thoughts out loud like Johnny Rotten, "The Ice-Queen Bitch Goddess."

Then there was the black again.

* * *

To Be Continued Soon... Thanks to SusanAngel 


	3. Chapter 3

_Vampire now cursed-with-soul-Buffy is trying to piece together where it all went wrong and how she can make it right. When she realizes she needs Angel's help at Wolfram and Hart old pain happens in a new way. Buffy/Angel angst hurt/comfort. More Spike/Faith coming. _

Chapter 3…And Tell Me It's Raining

Buffy was a horrible disgusting evil demon that couldn't even kill herself right.

_"You're a demon child,"_ her mother had said and laughed.

It was a good thing her mother was dead because she wouldn't be laughing now. God, this was what life was now, who she was now? A person who would think such thoughts, no, not a person, an undead monster. This was what she was now. Or maybe it was like Dracula said_: This is what you always were. You just needed me to set you free. _No! He was the last thing she wanted to remember. She was truly glad in her soul that he was dead, that she had killed him. But, the others…

She closed her eyes and drew her knees up to her chest and hummed. She would just think of these comfy cozy adorable high-quality multi-colored polka-dot pajamas someone put her in. She knew it was the same someone who gently undressed her and bathed her in a designer porcelain tub when she deserved boiling oil. Buffy knew that someone was still here, talking. Buffy had learned to drowned out his voice out with all the others.

These days (weeks? months?) Angel literally treated Buffy like an infant and she literally acted like one. She did nothing but cry as the waves of horror hit her like tsunamis of pointy stabby individual Hells. When she tried to form words and failed he said it was alright. That this was normal. (Normal! Her friends were really right about him going off the deep end. Not that she should talk now, so she literally didn't.)

He said that it was all like being born again because it was just that. Angel said he would help Buffy through it and that he wouldn't leave her. Angel said he wouldn't leave her no matter what. The minute it came out of his mouth she wanted to kill him like she killed the last vampire that made all of this happen. Why couldn't he have said that years ago when it would have mattered?

Neither of them could ever be with anyone. Because nothing felt the same after you died and stayed dead; after only your demon had lived and took it all for itself. So, Buffy was being reborn just like Angel had been, cursed with their own souls. And in this second life, after you had been to your own Hell, your own heavenly Hell, and back again, you were always dead. That was why he had nothing but misery in his voice when he said he wouldn't leave her and that was why she was nothing but miserable to hear it.

It was barely a drop in the misery bucket. Buffy understood why she could never really touch Angel before; why he could leave her so easily. She knew now because she was just like him now. She knew the truth of who you were laid in your heart, not your soul, and the heart was destructive above all things.

Buffy thought about all the soulless things she had really wanted to do to make Angel stay with her forever. All the things she had tried to do and failed. When she lost her life, her soul, all those deep down desires floated to the surface like the desperate air bubbles of a drowning victim that just wouldn't fucking die. But, now she finally had him holding her, taking care of her every need, saying he wouldn't leave. This was all she really wanted more than anything in her former life.

When she was alive she wanted him to tell her the truth about his goddamn pain. And now he was, and that wasn't fair, because she didn't care anymore. She didn't. She now had the pain all by herself.

Of course, their dead bodies still held onto pleasure and hers enjoyed the times he was holding her, washing her hair, brushing it, putting her in clothes when she refused to do nothing but sit as his all-too-typical giant corporate suite window (if all-too-typical corporate suits had mystically bound shackled in them for emergencies) that let her look at the sun and even feel it a little, but not really.

Of course, now Angel didn't have to tell Buffy anything, and of course, now is when he chose to talk. He talks about why he left her in the first place as if it was what still mattered to her now. She knew why they could have never be just with each other and be truly happy. Now she knew the truth. She knew how the heart was destructive above all things because it was insatiable , and it would lie, kill, and twist to get at what it wanted. It would do it the best to the things it wanted the very most. And now that she had this glamorous cursed soul that was all the rage who cared about the damn heart?

She just wanted things back to the way they were before, and that usually never worked. So, when Angel was done talking to her about love and morals and choices and having a son with that zero-fashion-sense bitch vampire Darla, Buffy got out of her fetal position that she had been in all this time. She tapped on the evil corporate window that showed her the LA fog.

"It—it's special glass," Angel was stammering now in his all black corporate wear.

Buffy made bumps in Angel's smooth talk just by getting up.

"You're still, you know, a—a vampire, but you're you again Buffy, or at least you will be. We got your soul back, and all the things that you—that happened—they weren't you they were—"

"You keep saying the same things over and over," she said her voice feeling thick in her throat, "Is that what you do here? Have C.E.O meetings and just repeat your talking points?"

"No, I mean I'm really not the best public speaker in the world, so when I do have meetings I—No!" he said all-stammery.

It made Buffy smile at the skyscrapers and the fog that sprayed over that even a constant summer sun couldn't burn away.

"I've been talking to you for four weeks thinking you were catatonic, trying to reach you, and you still don't trust me because what I may or may not do here? If I didn't own this place you wouldn't be alive right now."

"Keeping vampires alive doesn't make me shine with confidence that this place is for the good," she said.

"If I were you, the last thing I'd be doing is judging the person that's helping me," he said folding his arms.

"No judging. Just talking. I thought that was what you wanted," Buffy said.

"I'm sorry, Buffy," he said, "I could say I'm under a little stress here, if I wanted to make a huge understatement."

Buffy turned to her former-high-school-sweetheart-creature-of-the-nigh t-boyfriend in all his 6 foot 2 well dressed-ness Champion of LA glory. He just looked so adorable. He looked like a tasty black liquorish whip or a tortured over-grown boarding school boy she should go to jail for doing.

"Of course, it's great you're talking," he said, "and you don't have anything to feel ashamed of. When I first got my soul I had a really hard time. At least you're out of the first phase of it. You have to take it slow."

He was so small and cute to her. This was probably the way Angel had seen Buffy back in high school. But, unlike Angel, Buffy was a Slayer first, and a vampire second so she didn't have time to play with cute things…

"Where's Spike?" she asked with a bit of a smirk.

… or maybe that was all Buffy had time for.

Buffy decided quickly she had some time to play with Angel, but this time she'd make the rules, not him. She was a demon bitch after all.

"He won't be able to help you," Angel said quickly, "He won his soul. I think it's different to be cursed with it. Or maybe with Spike's ADD, he just can spend three weeks crying in a basement to get over 100 and 30 years of mass murder and cruelty. I know you. Three weeks isn't going to work for you, even though that was all the time you spent soulless. So, if you looking for an easy way out—"

"Any way out will do. It's funny, Angel. You say we're the same now with the curse and all. When Willow cursed you and I sent you to Hell you said you didn't remember anything about what you did when you lost your soul. How come I remember everything? You wouldn't have been lying to your little 16 year old girlfriend, would you?"

Yes, Buffy had time for toying and it was turning out to be kind of fun. She marched up across the space between them at the big window.

"You think you remember everything? You were 17," he said miserably, but she saw a little smirk.

"Well, let's just go with soulless vampire stuff. Let's see. Got turned by Dracula. Rose up. Fucked Dracula drained him for all the knowledge and power he had. Killed him. Got Andrew to invite me in," she said.

She was counting everything out on her fingers and seeing if Angel showed any sign of flinching when she mentioned fucking Dracula.

"I—I had plans, plans for my Slayer Army," she said, "I—I was going to keep them all. I had worked out a way that—that they'd be obedient, but I wasn't going to make them vampires. Obedience was—was important to me. I—"

She stopped. She found she couldn't count it all off so casually not even in front of Angel who would understand, or especially not him. Buffy was supposed to be Angel's pure inspiration.

"No," Angel said plainly, "You wouldn't want any of them to be as strong as you, but someone messed up that plan. Then you came here and-"

"I'm telling you I know what happened!" Buffy snapped, "I remember it all. Willow messed up my plan. She saw me coming and—and I killed her girlfriend in front of her. I—I would have killed her if I could. When those plans fell through I thought about who had the power to take The Slayers down—you, and Spike. I wanted you without your soul. I-I think I wanted Spike with his, just for fun. Just because he got it for me."

Her snappy voice ended in a whisper. Buffy looked out the huge plate glass window and leaned her head against it. She was weak and it was a long way down. Whenever she tried to toy with vampires with souls too much Buffy was the one that ended up hurting herself. You think that now she was a vampire with a soul that would stop.

"The glass is stronger than 10 tons of steel. Nothing can break through it. You don't have to talk about all this right away but keep talking to me," he said.

Buffy shut her eyes.

"Or what? You'll torture me. I know you and your team of evil mad scientists did something to me, Angel."

"Buffy, this place isn't what you think. There are no evil experiments or—"

"Oh no?"

She went to punch all the stoic-ness off his face really hoping she'd somewhat succeed. He grabbed her wrist before she could even touch him. She quickly yanked her wrist away.

"That's what I thought," she said, "You did something to me. You can't tell me lies anymore, because now I'm just as bad as you. So, don't piss on me and tell me it's raining. I know you had that god-king bitch and that savage fighter beat the shit out of me to show me my place before Willow cursed me."

_So, don't piss on me and tell me it's raining._

"I didn't do that, Buffy," he said, "and they —Illyria wouldn't have hurt you so bad if you just gave her what she—She traveled back in time to save someone extremely important, but you got in her way. And you aren't as bad as me. I'm much worse and have a lot more experience at being this way. So, I can tell you that one-day you'll be happy that all of this worked out the way it did. But for now we just have to take it one day at a time."

_Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining._ Buffy was half listening to Angel. She knew he wasn't really what was important. She had to figure out how to make this right.

"So, you made a deal with dominatrix-time-traveler smurfette. Let me guess? She got to take my power. How come I remember everything perfectly until she shows up and then, things get all Memento? What did you do to me, Angel? I know all about those rooms in this place that do the scramble on your brain. I put someone in there myself. That Slayer that was trying to capture me, what's-her-name. I assume you got her out. Now, I'm the prisoner, and you took my power when it's all I had left. I know I deserve a lot worse, but…"

_Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining. _That was something that Slayer said to Buffy. Buffy told that Slayer she wanted her, that she was a part of her plan. Buffy tried to seduce her, and it almost worked. Then, she really started to piss Buffy off and Harmony told Buffy that they could put the Slayer is a suspended animation Hell in one of those rooms. It would drive The Slayer crazy fast. Buffy had done things to her, hadn't she? Now she couldn't even remember what the girl looked like.

There was something about that Slayer that made her different from the others. Buffy remembered that Blue bitch wanted her out of that room. The Blue bitch tried to torture Buffy to get the Slayer out of that room as the Slayer went deeper and deeper into madness the longer she was in. Buffy remembered the Blue bitch and her partner would do anything to get that Slayer out of that room. _Princess Leia wants her Han Solo back. Will you ever be your own man, or even just a man at all…! You'll never have her, never. _Who had Buffy said that to? That fighter with Illyria. Buffy didn't know why she cared so much about a Slayer or why some fighter with the blue bitch wanted her out. Buffy quickly and painfully gotten her ass kicked after that. Maybe there were parts of that she was glad Angel had her forget. But, she couldn't afford to be innocent.

"We have to go through it slow, Buffy," Angel said.

She almost forgot he was there. That she was in the middle of a sentence with him. Too bad she had to remember. Too bad she needed to get him in line.

"No, we'll go through this now," she said, "Because unlike you, I don't have time to repress. This is the tech age, the information age. My generation does things quick. So the blue stick can travel back in time? That explains why she said I was a weak dead soul in her world. I want your people to call her people, and then call my people, my person – me, and set up a meeting with her. You gave her my power and tried to make me forget things. How could you? Well, you're not the only one who can make deals with-"

"Buffy!" he snapped, "I'm trying to help you. Anything that was done was just so we could stop you from killing yourself. I didn't take your power. You're on a few mystical sedatives that will wear off, like Giles did that time with that thing. You know, that thing with your birthday and that vampire and The Council? I really wanted to hit him after I found out about that, but-but you forgave him."

Oh God! Was he doing this on purpose? Acting like the vampire she knew when she was a girl. Bringing up things that happened then. Simple little things that seemed so complicated then, when Buffy believe Angel loved her, when she believed there was love. She felt the familiar knife in her throat.

"Angel, please, let me go," she said, "and—and help me fix this. Whatever deal you made with Illyria to change things, I can make too."

"I made no deal, Buffy. Even if Illyria could take you back in time," Angel said, "the price would be too great and you wouldn't truly be redeemed."

He reached his hand out to her and she drew away.

"You think this is about me?" Buffy said, "You think I wouldn't pay any price for them? This is about all those people—those poor innocent Slayers, and people, I was supposed to protect. I need to know how to get them their lives back."

"I know how you feel, but they're dead, Buffy. You have to be thankful for what you can have now. Illyria can't time travel anymore. That power has been sacrificed to save someone really important for the world."

"Someone important for the world? Me! I can't be that important to have to go through this! Why did you have her do it, Angel? Why not just let me die? Better yet, why not save me before all this."

"Because, I wasn't the one who did it!" Angel said, "Illyria did, and she couldn't control to where, when, in time she goes back. In order to even do what she did, she had to take the person's soul-mate she was trying to save back with her. It's not an easy life surviving a time travel trip and having what could've-would've- should've been in your head when no one else does. You're not exactly fun to be around, especially when you were a huge pain in the ass in the first place."

"So, you didn't do it, but you had Miss Blue Balls take you back in time and this was all you could get. Sorry. I bet you were hoping for Ex-Cheerleader warm beating hearted Buffy. You could break up with her and leave town all over again," Buffy said, "Wait, I've seen The Back to the Futures. Does that mean there are two of you? You didn't kill your other self, did you? What was it like?"

"You're not listening. Buffy, for the last time I wasn't-No one had to kill their other self Back to the Future. There's not two of anyone, thank God! I think it's like a consciousness merge of both realities or something. I wouldn't know. I did not have Illyria do this, nor was I part of it. She went back in time to change things because that was what she wanted to do. I never said the person she brought back was me, and I never said the person she was trying to save was you. You just got caught up in the crossfire and you lived. You got lucky. It happens to people like us sometimes," Angel said, "even though it never feels like luck."

Buffy made sure she stayed silent as Angel looked and waited for her to say something. He wasn't the one who made this all happen. Angel wasn't the one that saved her. He hadn't tried with all his new power of being a corporation person. All he did with his power was give her a temporary psychiatric stay complete with personal sponge baths and cuddles. Buffy remembered doing that for him. Back then she would have done anything to keep him with her.

"You're also not a prisoner," he said, "Here you'll get blood and whatever else you want, but you can go at anytime. If you do you can buy blood from scarce butcher shops, or live off rats. You may be tempted to get one of those vampire groupies to feed off of. I'll tell you right now, different vampires have different willpower. Some of vampires can feed off humans and stop and don't develop blood lust, but in my experience those vampires tend to be betas, followers. The stronger the personality and mind you have; the higher the blood lust. I wouldn't risk it."

She wanted to ask him if he was speaking from experience just to be mean because she could already guess the answer. Buffy wanted to say a bunch of snappy comebacks that came into her strong personality and mind, but she stayed quite and acted like the L.A. sky line was showing her a movie. A really sad movie, like The Notebook. Buffy had more of her share of peripheral vision and she knew he was looking at her. If this was Spike he would have grabbed her arms and kissed her. But, Angel wasn't Spike.

"If you have any more questions, or want money to go, Wes will be happy to help you. If you want anything else, anything at all, call Harmony," Angel said.

Buffy turned to Angel and she knew she was glowering at him. Wes as in Wesley, as is in Wyndam, as in Pryce, as in the price Buffy have to pay by talking to some failed Watcher who hated her before she became a vampire. Buffy was so sure he would give her all her information and blood packets with a Wolfram & Hart smile. Then, there was Harmony as in Harmony.

Angel wasn't Spike, and he always seemed to win these little contests. But, Buffy was going to hold on to all the dignity she could with her silence. What Angel didn't realize was that he couldn't really win because it was no longer about him.

"Sorry," Angel said, "I'm out of time for today. There's somewhere else I have to be."

There always was.

_Oh, Bangel, you sooo angsty! More soon. Thanks for the requests to continue and please review. If you don't like how this is turning out…wait…_


	4. Chapter 4

"It's not fair. There's always something in the way!" Faith said.

She had stopped running and was out of breath. Her white dirty sneakers were at the edge of a ditch in The Riverview Cemetery. She knew she could jump across and make it. She was a superhero after all! But it was too dark to see the other side of the ditch and that she was scared. She was being a baby! Faith just had a thing about falling into open graves. It wasn't like if she did fall she'd be all girlie and scream. She knew she just go for it and jump, but right before she could she felt the vampire's arms around her.

Then she did scream, but she wasn't being all girlie. She was laughing too. He tickled her so much and she laughed so hard she couldn't even get any words out. He did that thing where he picked her up and spun her around. It made Faith feel like she could fly. Faith loved it when Spike did that, but she'd never ask him to do it. She wasn't a little kid. She kind of felt like it was a rip-off she couldn't fly on her own. Superheroes were supposed to be able to do that.

"Let me go! Let me go, Spike!" she yelled.

Faith kicked and squirmed and laughed and laughed. Spike stopped tickling her and spinning, which was good because Faith, for real, couldn't take anymore. He had one arm under her stupid big boobs, which she felt like she got overnight and another arm under her legs. Spike was so strong he was holding her like she was a baby, not 9.

"Never," Spike said in his happy voice, "I'll hold onto you forever."

"That's cheating. You can't do that!" she said as he carried her away from the open grave.

She was even bigger than 9. Faith was actually all-woman sized because she had to go to sleep for wicked long to get her powers. They told her lots of time went by and her body grew-up, but she was still 9, but her body wasn't. That explained the stupid boobs that she had to learn to run and fight with that everyone made sure they never touched. But, other than that it was 5 by 5. Everything was so much better. It was the future! Of course being a super hero meant Faith had crazy money and she didn't have to go to school anymore. Her and mom had moved to Portland to a huge house in the woods, and they had Spike… AND Daddy came to visit them! Sometimes.

"You promised you'd keep this serious. It's not fair," she said, but she laughed.

Spike put her down on the steps of one of those houses where they put dead people and sat down next to her.

"Yeah, I only promised it to mum so she'd let us go. You gonna tell her?"

Faith wanted to learn some real fighting, and Spike had a way of just having fun. It drove mom crazy. Ever since the whole family got superpowers Mom had gotten way more serious.

"If I told her you were cheating she'd just say 'Life's not fair.' Mom always says that," Faith said.

Mom still said a lot of the same old stuff like: Men are scum or, Life is Hard. But, she also made Faith go to bed and eat vegetables. She didn't even like it when Faith swore! But, it was all worth it because she stopped drinking and gave up her party friends, for good this time. Sometimes she did some other weird stuff too, but Faith supposed it was just part of mom's superpowers.

"It's not. Life isn't fair," Spike said.

Faith was no dummy. She could tell when they came out here Spike didn't really want to do serious fighting today. He wanted to play and then talk. Spike liked to play like a kid and talk like a grown-up, but he didn't talk to her like any other grownup. If all other vampires were like Spike they'd be great, but they weren't. They were evil. It would be her job to kill them when she learned how. Spike was special. He was chosen to protect her and watch over her until she grew-up.

"It's snot. Sounds like you said life is snot," Faith said.

"Is it? Is life snot?" he asked.

"Gross!" she said.

"I mean, are you happy? Do you like livin' here? Do you like being home schooled? Is there anything you miss, because if there is—"

"I keep tellin' you I don't miss nothin'- anything. I don't miss anything," she said.

Faith remembered to correct herself with proper English because her English tutor was really on her case about it. She wished Spike could be her English tutor. He'd never bother her about the way she talked, or what she said, and it would work because he was English. He did bother her with stuff like this. Spike always asked Faith if she was happy and if she missed anything from her old life in Boston or if there was anything she wondered about.

"Why would I miss a crappy apartment? Kids makin' fun of me, and my cousins beating me up? Now I can beat them up. I knew I was always a freak and now I'm a super-freak, but I'm a super hero. It's wicked awesome!"

"You're not a freak. You're special. Very special and very loved. A princess, but sometimes—"

"Ugh! Don't call me a princess. They're boring and wear dresses and don't do anything. Nana would always take me to those movies with the Disney princesses in Kendall Square. She liked them. I didn't. I guess I was like that princess Sleeping Beauty. She was the most boring of all. Just layin' there doin' nothing, waitin' for some dude to kiss her."

"Well, you're awake now, and I know you'll never lay around waiting for some bloke to kiss you," Spike said and he smiled.

"No way," she said, "But, I do miss Kendall Square, and the ice cream shop there, and watchin' the metalheads and the punks line up at The Ratt lookin' all freaky when you get off The Green Line. I—I miss Nana and Papa. Mom says they took the new money and went back to Albania, but I know when she's lying. They're dead, aren't they?"

"Yeah," Spike said.

Faith felt that familiar feeling like a little man had punched her chest from inside. She hadn't felt it in a while. Faith liked that Spike didn't tell her not to be sad. She remembered how she used to feel this feeling in Boston so much more and people told her to not be sad, and it made it worse.

"Did they die before you guys found me and realized I was a Slayer and gave us money?" Faith asked.

It would have been nice if Nana could have gotten a fur coat. She was always going on about fur coats, but Faith realized probably not.

"Yes," Spike said.

"See, I like that you don't lie. Mom and Dad lie. They always did. They're doing better now. Not drinking. Less fighting. I know they still hate each other and dad has a whole new bag of excuses as to why he can't be around but—at least they're trying now that I'm a special kid and my powers gave them powers."

Faith was a vampire Slayer and most of them were wicked old, like 15. But, something happened, something really bad. Faith didn't really know what. She just knew she slept, like forever, and woke up with a cool arm-band tattoo. Faith slept and some powers went to her mom and dad to protect her. She also had Spike for that.

"I'll always tell you the truth when I can. I'll tell you this: I know I didn't know you before, but I know you were always a special kid. I think your mum and dad always tried. It's just now they have money and power and that makes it a bit easier," Spike said.

"I knew it. I knew you didn't really hate dad. He does try you know," Faith said.

Spike seemed to hate Faith's dad sometimes. Faith figured that it was because he had left Faith's life when she was four. He had left so long ago she didn't even remember what he looked like. But, the minute Faith woke up and saw him again she knew it was him: tall, dark hair, Irish, and not real good at talking. Daddy. He was the first person she recognized when she woke up.

"Never said I hated the bastard. At this point, lack of trying isn't his problem," Spike said, "But, still sometimes with all the money and power in the world, people fail. People fail and lie, even super heroes. There are ways that we've—I've- failed you and you'll come to understand it as you get older and just know—know that I love you, Faith. Everyone does but-"

"Spike, I had to go to Boston public school for four years. Going to sleep for fifteen years and having weird dreams and waking up with boobs and a cool tat was a vacation compared to that or whatever else happened," she said.

He laughed. Faith could always make Spike laugh if he was sad.

"Remind me never to go to school there," he said.

"Yeah, you'd burn," she said, "They beat up sissy English kids."

"They wouldn't beat me I'd bite them. I'd bite the ones that bothered you in half," he said.

Then, Faith suddenly threw her arms around Spike and said: "Sometimes you're so good that I think I made you up. Wanna race home?"

She said it all really fast. That's how her feelings for Spike came out sometimes- fast and a lot, but it was fun, like eating a bunch of candy at once. Faith said stuff like this to Spike fast and always started running; because sometimes she felt like:

What if Faith really did make Spike up and if she said it out loud it would make him go away? Running would make Spike not disappear because he'd have to run after her.

"Now who's cheating," he called.

Faith felt herself smile big. Spike was still there. She ran as fast as she could zig-zaging through grave stones to really give him a challenge.

Faith knew when he caught her she could expect to be tickled and help upside down. She had to hold in her laughing as she saw him in front of her already. He was all pale and cold with his short leather jacket. Only- hadn't he been wearing his long leather jacket? His huge ghost white hand grabbed her arm.

"It is you!" the vampire said, "The damaged Slayer. The only living Chosen One. There's no telling what your blood can do for me, or your body."

It wasn't Spike. It was a very smelly vampire. She screamed and tried to shake lose but he was so strong. She heart thudding sounds and realized there were more vampires, three, and one of them was Spike. Spike was hitting them but they were hitting him back.

Faith screamed again as the vampire that had her arm went into vamp face and tried to bite her. Suddenly, her hand hurt and she realized she hit him. She hit him wicked hard and he let her go.

"Spike!" she yelled and ran to help him with the other vampires.

There were four of them now. No, three. He got one and it turned to dust with that windy sound.

"Run," Spike said, "Run home, Faith!"

He said to her in his vampire face that looked just as scary as the other faces, but he wasn't.

"No way," Faith said, "I'm The Vampire Slayer!"

She went to run into the fight to help Spike with her stake, until she felt something pulling her hair hard. She shrieked. It was the vampire had she punched.

"Stupid girl. I'm 300 years old today. You think you can beat me? How old are you?"

"None of your business, dirt-bag!" she spat.

"You look old for a Slayer," he said, "I think the older you get the weaker Slayers are. Not the case with vampires, my dear."

His fangs were out and he was bringing them closer to Faith's neck. Then, suddenly he let her go. It was almost like he flew away. His mean strong arms that were holding her to him disappeared and she almost fell. She heard the vampire yell.

"I don't know," a male voice said, "They say age is just a number."

"Daddy," she smiled, "Daddy!"

It was him! He threw the vampire off of Faith! He was standing there all tall and broad and quietly angry in the dark. He was wearing all black and his pale Irish skin stood out. Faith saw the vampire quickly come back and hit Daddy hard, so hard he fell. Faith didn't really know how strong Daddy was. His super powers he had were kind of a mystery, just like a lot of things about him always were. But, Faith didn't have time to think about that. She had to save him. She ran at the vampire and aimed for his heart with her stake. Faith was surprised with the wind sound came and the vampire was gone.

"I killed it! daddy, I killed it!" she said to him as he was still on the ground.

Faith knew she wasn't a little girl anymore. She was nine and she should be calling her dad "dad" not "daddy," but she was just so happy to see him. Besides, there were no other kids around to call her a baby for it. She thought sometimes he liked it. He'd get a little smile. He hardly ever smiled. But, again Faith couldn't think about that because it seems that there were more vampires around them.

Spike was doing good. Staking them fast. Faith got two more! She really hoped her dad and Spike saw. But, she knew she shouldn't be thinking about that as one grabbed her and hit her. It didn't hurt, much, but she yelped. Daddy killed that one too. It was the last one. They had killed a bunch of vamps together! Daddy pulled Faith off the ground.

"Did you see how many I got?" Faith asked him excitedly.

"What the hell are you doing?" he looked angrily past her, "Are you that stupid? You tell me how I made mistakes, ask me to trust you. I do, but it just looks like the same old crap to me. Me carrying your dumb ass, and guess what? So tired of it. All you do is take my money, my power, my resources and piss and moan that I'm not around enough. Well, when I am around I tend to wonder why you weren't one of the ones that died in that world of yours."

No matter what Faith did she always seemed to let her dad down. Faith was stupid to think it would be any different now.

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I know I'm not suppose to—"

Faith was really trying hard not to cry. She wasn't some stupid kid, or maybe she was even superpowers she was still stupid. Her dad wished she wasn't alive.

"Oh, oh Faith no. I was—I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to Spike."

Now he just felt sorry for her because of her dumb crying.

"No, why—why would you say that to Spike? It—it was my fault. My idea to race."

Damn it! Faith was yelling at him and it could really show she was crying. She felt Spike's hands on her shoulders.

"No, no!"

Faith pulled away and yelled at him too.

"I'm not a little kid! I'm a superhero. I-"

"You are a superhero, love," Spike said, "You saved your dad tonight and he doesn't like it when other people save him. Makes him realize how badly he failed you. So he gets mean."

Faith turned to Spike.

"He's—he's drinking again, huh?"

This was the stuff that was all confusing. Faith knew Spike and dad knew each other for a wicked long time, like from the 70s maybe, but she didn't get how. Knowing dad it had to be from drinking.

"No, I'm—Faith, I—" Dad never knew what to say.

"I don't know," Spike said, "I know he's been spending an awful lot of time with something tempting and not good for him. S'why he's so unhappy."

"Let me talk to her!" dad snapped, "Faith, I'm not unhappy because of you."

He was in front of her now bending down to look at her at eye level.

"Why aren't you happy? We got all this money now. That's always what you wanted. We got enough money. I—I don't know why you have to keep leavin' to get more," she said, "We got these superpowers. I don't cause no trouble. I work hard in school."

"It's not that simple, Faith. I would love to stay here with you, but I can't. I'm a superhero too and there's stuff I have to do, or else really bad things will happen. I—I'm glad you work hard in school."

"Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining, dad," Faith said.

Spike snickered.

"I'm not—" dad stammered, "Faith, you shouldn't talk like that, especially to me. If I'm—I'm your father."

"I'm not four anymore, dad. I know when you leave you're not out saving the world all the time, but you do what you gotta do. I also I know you think school is really for suckers, but I like it. It helps now that there aren't any other kids I have to hit because they keep tripping me and stealing my books. Sometimes we don't even need books. Did you know that there's this thing where you can read any book on a screen and carry it with you in your pocket? Even comic books! They're all in color and everything!"

"I—I did know that. Kind of. Even comic books? But how do you get them?" he said.

"I can show you," she said.

He never was good with stuff like that. Faith took his arm and they walked back to her house. When they got there mom was doing her usual, listening to speed metal and washing the floor. There were so many things about mom that changed when Faith woke up with powers, but, so many things that stayed the same.

"Hi mom," Faith said.

The speed metal was the same. Her long dark hair wavy, big round dark eyes and olive skin were the same. Her acid wash jeans and tight shirt with dark roses on it was the same. She almost never took those clothes off now.

"Hi Faithy," mom said.

Mom now had blue streaks in her hair and a faraway look in her eye. These were things her mom might have had before, but they were just a little different.

Something that was totally different was Faith and her mom pretty much did the same things everyday now. Mom called it "routine" and said Faith needed it. Faith thought it was going to be wicked boring, but it wasn't. She liked it, but maybe that was because her routine included practice fighting, punching and kicking and cool swords. It kinda made it easier to sit still during the boring times. That and mom was always there. There were no more boyfriends and parties anymore.

"It's time to wash-up," mom said and she turned off Pantera.

She said that everyday now just like she kissed Faith on the cheek after she came back home with Spike. Even though tonight was a little different because Spike took her to the cemetery when they usually just trained in the park.

"I know," Faith said, "Dinner, Monday. Mashed potatoes and chicken."

She smiled. It also meant Teen Wolfe with mom and Spike yelling at the TV. Dad would probably like that some, but act grumpy.

"That comes with broccoli too, lady," mom said.

Mom pulled Faith's hair back and then she frowned. Crap. She saw where a vamp punched her. Mom's eyes went icy, literally. Now when she got mad or upset mom's eyes turned to the color icicles and she talked real weird.

"You—you were injured. I see, the half-breeds have failed yet again to protect their most powerful warrior. Unacceptable!"

"Huh? You're doing that ice queen thing again mom. You always do it when dad is here. Can't you guys just not fight?"

"We won't fight," dad said and he looked at mom.

The look said _if you try to fight with me in front of the kid I'll kill you._ Grown-ups always thought they could say stuff with looks and she wouldn't notice.

"We—we won't fight," mom said, "I—I'm a little pissed that you went out with two vamps and they managed to get you bloody. But, I suppose you can't be too tough in this world."

"No, I can't," Faith said.

Faith washed her hands as she saw dad sit down at the dining room table. He looked tired and sad.

"I have a surprise for you," mom said.

Mom didn't look sad at all now. Mom didn't do surprises that often, but when she did they were great.

"A puppy!" Faith exclaimed.

"No, you know that's not until you pass math and take care of your fern."

"Oh c'mon! That's your fern. You're the one who talks to it. Crazy talking to plants. You just don't like puppies. Who doesn't like puppies? You're a mean crazy lady."

"I'll show you a mean crazy lady. Maybe I should just keep the surprise for myself."

"Fine. I don't care," Faith said and crossed her arms.

"You would if you knew what it was. Your father might be interested in it too."

Faith couldn't think what her mom could get that her dad would like too.

"I know what it is. I can smell," Spike said.

"Chocolate cake!" Faith exclaimed.

"Chocolate cake? Can chocolate cake can't beat you at checkers?" he said walking down the stairs in the big open hall.

Whoa! No way!

"Connor!" she cried.

Faith felt all flushed and pink as he hugged her. He smelled like rosy soap and salt. He had on a blue button down shirt with a Beatles t-shirt under it. He had played them all their albums and wrote them out in order once. He had taught her checkers and said he wanted her to beat him when he came back.

Faith realized something was wrong. This was all wrong. She was losing at checkers to Connor after she had been winning for so long.

"You're losing because you're tired," Spike said.

"It is past bedtime," mom said from her knitting.

Traitor! Spike was supposed to be the fun one. He wasn't supposed to remind mom of bedtime.

"What?" Spike said holding his up on the couch, "Why am I getting the death look? It's true."

He was sitting reading a book about New York in the 50s and he kept complaining it was wrong. There were some bad things about Spike always telling the truth. But, Faith wasn't going to act like a baby over it. She said goodnight to Connor, Spike and daddy. Daddy was the only one who hadn't been doing anything. He was just sitting on the couch watching Faith and Connor play checkers like they were a movie.

Faith noticed that when she went to say goodnight to daddy Spike gave daddy his own death look. It said: _Do something with the kid other than just staring at her with your brooding stupid face. _That's what Spike would say. Faith had learned the word _brooding _through Spike about dad.

Daddy pulled Faith into his lap and said: "I love you, Faith. You do know that, right? I swear everything I—daddy does is for you I need to change the world and make it better for you because that's what dads do."

He looked worried and tired. Faith suddenly got that expression _carrying the weight of the world. _

"It's okay, dad. I get it," Faith said as she patted his back, "Just try to hang out with us and smile sometimes. Otherwise, what's the point of changing the world?"

"Smart kid," mom said.

When Faith took of her jeans and her baggy red sweat shirt with the monkey face. She took off her sports bra, which she hated, and put on her big Red Sox shirt for bed. She looked in the mirror. Faith knew she didn't just get boobs and grow taller with sleeping. She looked old, wicked old, like 20 or 30 or something. She touched the tattoo on her arm and wondered if it had hurt when she got it. Then, her mom came in and walked up behind her.

"You are beautiful," she said.

"Yeah, so are you," Faith said, "I'm a little bigger, especially in the boobs and my skin and eyes are a little lighter. That must be from daddy. The rest is all you. I look as old as you. Why don't you look any older? You aren't really a vampire."

"Vampires wish they were me. One of my powers is timeless beauty."

"What a boring power!" Faith said.

"I'll show you a boring power on your butt," mom said and scooped her up and threw her on the bed.

Faith laughed. Mom did stuff like that every so often. Faith realized she had to be strong to do it. Faith was bigger then her. In the mirror Faith realized how much they looked the same age. She knew mom wasn't a vampire. Mom went out in the day all the time.

Around the time Faith first woke up Faith saw her mother angrily push dad into a wall. Faith was pretty sure it was because dad was freaked out and tried to leave. Her mother had never done that to her father before. In fact, Faith kind of remembered it being the other way around.

"Mom, I know I'm not 9. Not really. Tonight a vamp said I looked old, and Spike was talking. I know something really bad happened before I fell asleep. Sometimes I think I remember being awake."

"That half-breed is always talking with his incessant selfish prattle. I will weld his mouth shut with his own fangs!"

"Ma, don't go all ice queen. Spike just doesn't like to lie. It's not him really. I was reading and I know other Slayer's parents don't get powers or a good vampire, and sometimes I have dreams."

"Well, you're special, Faithy. Very special. You don't know how strong you make us. And, Any dreams you have aren't really about you. They're about some other girls that weren't as strong as you. But, you can learn from the weak. It's something that took me a long time to learn, but pay attention to the weak, they could be what makes you strong. Now, go to sleep."

She turned out the light. Faith could see the outline of her Harry Potter books and her Spiderman doll on her shelves. She had so many toys now, but mom made her put them away.

"Ok, mom. Don't worry," she said and yawned, "I know daddy is here to talk about something. Don't let daddy drive you too crazy, and don't let Spike drive daddy too crazy."

"This is difficult. I'd prefer staying with you. You are a fine example of true—I mean, you're more fun than some stupid guys," mom said.

Faith's mom really meant what she said as Faith felt her crawl into bed next to her and put her arms around her. Mom was always trying to control her temper and say nice things to Faith. Only now she was better at it, even with her weird ice queen thing. Before she was always angry at guys, but she never actually wanted to spend more time with Faith than them. It was funny because now Faith didn't think guys were such bad people.

"They're doing their best. Doesn't Connor look cute today?"

"That is irrelevant. I mean, he's—he's much too old for you, and much too young for me," she said

"Not really. You have that boring timeless beauty power, and tons of money, and a cool kid. You're a catch. I was going to grow up and marry him, but I can go with the flow if you wanna make him my stepdad."

"Looks can be deceiving, sometimes they're nothing but," mom said.

"You think he's cute. I can tell," Faith said.

"Any feelings I could ever have for some dude, for anyone, could never compare to what I feel for you. You are everything good in humanity. I love you, child Faith Lehane."

"Love you too, mom, but you've gotten wicked serious since all the powers. You can find some of the fun, you know. Just don't drink. It makes you mean and not yourself," Faith said closing her eyes.

"What if myself is mean?" mom said.

Faith turned to her in the dark. She could see the outline of her mom's face. It looked different longer and pointier but that was just the dark.

"No, this is you, mama. I've never seen you so happy even if you did get all serious. I just don't know what to do about dad," Faith said.

"You are a child! He isn't your responsibility and neither am I," mom said.

"Sure you are. You're my family. Spike too."

"I forbid you to die for us ever again," mom said.

"Geez, mom. I just meant I want you all to be happy."

"I am happy because you are happy. Finally, and no man or beast will take what makes me happy or they will suffer the pain of death. I mean, no one is going to fuck with us again."

"I thought you said no more swearing," Faith said.

"Sometimes, in strong matters it's the only way to get a point across. Sleep, firecracker," mom said, "A child's mind needs more sleep to regenerate. Tomorrow we will have our routine. The repetition isn't tedious. It moves us forward and makes this existence meaningful proving a devotion and love beyond any brief violent act."

"Ok, mom," Faith said and snuggled against her.

"But, you might want to think about sleeping too. You're weird talk goes crazy when you get tired. You can sleep right here with me. I got this big bed now."

"As you wish," mom said.

Sometimes Faith liked mom's weird talk


	5. Chapter 5

_Here's the full-on horror of soulless Vamped Buffy and the tragedy of time travel with Faith and Spike and friends. It gets harsh but nothing beyond what happened on the shows with more cursing. I never write horror because I like suffering. I write it to see the survival of the suffering_.

Only One You

Illyria had achieved it! She had traveled back to before Faith's death. She could feel it. She would get her most valued prize that had come to mean more to her than anything in seven dimensions. It was true that some prices had to be paid. One of them was that she was in this wretched Wolfram & Hart Los Angeles Headquarters Building. She had gone back to before its destruction.

"Something is wrong. Very wrong. What did you do?"

The grubby little white-haired English vampire dared to grab her. Spike- he and his insolence was another price to be paid for this trip.

"Sometimes I don't know why Faith keeps you as a pet. You are a dense creature. I've taken us back to before her death. Can't you sense that she is alive?"

"I sense that something is wrong. What's that smell? I know that smell. It's mixed with death. What time did you take us back to? When?"

He ran ahead with his battle coat- the black duster- trailing behind him. Illyria tightened in frustration. He was such a rash unpredictable creature.

"That is something I cannot control," she told him, "What does it matter? She is alive."

She had no choice but to follow him. Illyria needed him. Her time travel had weakened her and Spike was the one who could find Faith. He stopped at one of those useless screens, a computer, and activated it.

"Balls on a stick! Of course, it had to be today!"

She realized Spike was looking at the date and time. Humanoids were so obsessed with their exact measures of time. They thought every little event was so important that it made them forget the events that actually were of consequence!

"I take it this is in a time before you have convinced Faith that you are truly worthy of her. What does it matter? She is alive! Are you so selfish that you are worried you must woo her over again and are not up to the task?"

Illyria was frustrated because she was forced to follow him again. She never realized how dreary this place was until she traveled to other lands on this plane.

"I'm worried that you've given us a second chance just so we can watch her die again," Spike said.

Illyria was forced to run after him like a tag-a-long pet as he ran through the dark gray hallways and took a dark wood paneled elevator. Spike just assumed she would follow and kept speaking.

"Buffy is here," he continued, "The Slayer now gone vamp. Right about now I've just gone home to wait for my instructions like the good boy that I am, and Faith is either off having a beer, or getting captured and tortured by my once heroic now soulless demon ex."

Down, down, down they went in the dark elevator as Spike kept on with his speaking.

"Couldn't you have brought us back to before—? Never mind," he said, "In about an hour clueless lil' Spike is about to come 'round and shag big bad Buffy in hopes that she'll still be Hero Buffy and find Faith strapped to a table in some kind of tortured suspended animation. It was only chance that I got to her in time. But, if you think I'm gonna follow time-wimey Dr. Who rules and watch the other me be late to Faith's torture by that demon wearing Buffy's skin, you are sadly mistaken."

The elevator opened with its ridiculous ding, and Spike sprang out of it.

"You are not making any sense," Illyria said, "I do understand I am weak from my travel with you and you are most ungrateful. You should understand I will get stronger and you will be sorry."

She got in front of him and stood; relieved it stopped his constant motion.

"I'm already sorry I let Faith die once and suffer at all. I'm sayin' I'm not gonna let it happen again. I've seen all the Sci-fi and I know how these time travel things go, and now I have to watch my past self make the same mistakes. Until what? Not going to happen."

Spike acted like Illyria was challenging him about whatever idiot nonsense he had in his mind. Sometimes she didn't understand why Faith didn't hit Spike more.

"I do not know what other self you're speaking of. There is only one of you and for that I'm thankful," she said, "All we must do is find Faith and tell her she is forbidden to die for us again. I—I realize this is before she and I began to commune, so perhaps she would hear the forbiddance from you more easily. Our—friendship—can be built again, and if not, it was a worthy sacrifice for such a Warriors life."

"Hang on!" Spike shouted, "You're tellin' me there is no other Spike runnin' around getting all excited about vampire Buffy here to rip his heart out? No Spike that cries over her gone soul and has Faith to nurse him back to life; in her beautifully understated way with her overstated mouth? Until he realizes that the best thing he ever had was right in front of him? And of course, right then is when Angel, and his idiot brain, decide to take on The Black Thorne."

Spike paced in a quick circle and continued his series of questions that were not truly questions.

"And Faith, being so noble, thinks we have to help him because, even though it's obviously stupid, she thinks it's right. And then I, past Spike, says that he'll do it. But only if she marries him, thinking that she'll say 'yes' because she thinks she might die. And past Spike, the moron, thinks that it will somehow all be okay. That love will save them. That he'll make her leave in the last second. Convince her that's what's right," he still continued as his eyes misted.

" Only—only he never gets the chance because Faith does indeed bloody die. She throws herself in, knowing that she is dying to save Wes, her failed bloody Watcher, and she strikes a deal with you to save the rest of us. You're telling me all that, Blue?"

"You are the one incessantly speaking, not me," Illyria said, "But you are correct, that the time-line has ceased to exist and ourselves in it," Illyria said.

Illyria was finally able to make sense of his prattle. She answered him simply fearing that if she explained alternative dimensions he would continue asking questions.

"Good," he said, "C'mon."

Spike grabbed Illyria's arm and took her down the hall while she was still weak. At least he was quite. He took her down another dreary tin dark hall. There was a light ahead. It was harsh and sterile.

That was when Illyria sensed her. Faith was here and she was hurt and afraid. Then Illyria saw Faith was in a large open room with a black floor and white lights. She was strapped to a board that was titled up. The room was framed with cold white counters that had cabinets with various scientific and medical tools. Behind Faith there was an open door to another much smaller room that looked like closet or a tomb. Illyria sensed a dark magik coming from that room. The three horizontal bars that bound Faith to the vertical table were made of Wolfram & Hart reinforced steel. Illyria despised Wolfram & Hart reinforced steel. She couldn't rip it when she was weak.

"I know you love toys," a girl's voice said, "Can you believe all the stuff this place has?"

It was that Slayer vampire woman! Yes, she had hurt Faith. Illyria had not forgotten. Faith had won this battle, but seeing it was not pleasing for Illyria.

"I've already won, B, I've been redeemed so I don't care what you do to me for me," Faith said, "But, I care for you. The other you; the real you. You—"

The vampire hit Faith's heart shaped. Illyria heard the crack.

"This IS the real me. There is no other me!" the vampire Buffy said.

Illyria went to go to kill the vampire when Spike grabbed her.

"Wait, you're weak. Buffy's stronger then both of us. We know she doesn't hurt Faith too badly. For once let's think this through," he said.

Miserably, she knew the half-breed was right. He pulled her into a small room. She wanted to object. She would wait to strike. She would not hide!

"Relax," he said, "A corporate skybox to watch torture, no doubt. I know I was an evil vampire for 127 years, but this place makes my skin crawl."

Spike turned on a light in the room. Illyria saw that she could see through to Faith and the Buffy vampire through a portal that they could not see her and Spike through. It was not a magical portal. In this world it was known as a one way-mirror. Spike turned another switch that let them hear what was happening through a sound box- a speaker.

"Won't watch the show long. My smart phone's gone dumb here. Guess I don't have the past plan. Gotta go make a phone call the old-fashioned way and get a weapon or two. Don't move and don't kill anyone. Remember how strong Faith is, and you work on getting big and strong yourself," he said.

"You need not tell me that," she said, "There is magik coming from that small room behind Faith. I despise magik, but I can convert it into energy to heal myself with no detection."

Illyria realized Spike was already gone. She also realized she sensed something different from the room where Faith was captive. It was lust, lust and something painful but sweet. She saw that the Buffy vampire was kissing Faith on the mouth. She ended the kiss gently.

"So, you'll come willingly? Pun intended. All I ever had to do was give you hugs and kisses?" the vampire said to Faith.

"You were always so clueless, B. This is something I didn't need to lose a soul to want. Only I was the one on top in my fantasies. Look, just give me one hand free and I'll—Aaah!"

Faith had gotten one hand free and the vampire had bent it back until bone snapped. Illyria would kill this vampire. She would not follow orders from Spike.

"Don't worry," the vampire said to Faith, "It'll heal. I always thought you had the best body. So, why don't we preserve it forever?"

Illyria could not watch this. Faith's fear spiked but then begun being replaced by her resolve. Illyria knew this, but it brought her no comfort. She did not want Faith to be alone. She did not want to be alone. That was the moment Illyria sensed Spike was back. He touched her shoulder and she nodded at him.

"Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining, B. You don't want me. You never did and you don't now," Faith said, "You just want to scare me and torture me, but if you vamp me the joke is going to be on you. Remember how dark I can get _with_ a soul, without one I'm sure I'd be worse than you, worse than Angelus, and so strong."

"Poor little Faith so scared of her own power. That's why you were always nothing hiding behind the mouth of a whore, a little girl following everyone else's lead, begging to be loved because you knew you were never worthy of it for a second and I was."

"Totally," Faith said.

She said this simply. Agreeing with her enemies insult that she was powerless and weak. Illyria now knew this was one of her most masterful of strategies.

"…and imagine all that without a soul," Faith continued, "I bet I'd be like when Willow went dark only more white trash. I'd show you up with all the darkness and need in me. I'd probably steal your boyfriends while you were fucking me. Do—do you really want that kind of competition from your own vamp childe?"

"Like I'd sire you myself, as if you'd come close to that gift. But, if you want me inside you so bad," the Buffy vampire said.

She said this with glee. Illyria believed it was a threat she had been savoring. The Buffy vampire began to open Faith's jeans. Illyria felt Spike tense to move. She was the one that grabbed his arm this time.

"We cannot," she said her voice sounded strange, "You were correct before. We will not win and only a worse fate will befall her. Faith is strong. She can survive this type of violation."

"Like Hell!" he snarled in his vampire face.

Illyria had to hold him back and it was not an easy task and not only because she was weary from her time travel.

"B, look at me," Faith said to the vampire, "Look at me, and remember this. If you do this to me, it's okay. It's okay. Like I said: it's not the way I pictured it but I'll take what I can get. When—when we get your soul back I don't want you to stress out about it, or whatever you do to me. It's not your fault, okay?"

The vampire stopped her opening of Faith's pants. Illyria knew Faith did not feel any lust for this evil creature at this time. All lust, and whatever was mixed with it, when the creature had been kissing Faith's face was gone. All Illyria could sense now was Faith's resolve and her aloneness as she looked on unable to help. At that moment two things happened: Spike broke free of Illyria's grip and the Buffy vampire began to yell at Faith.

"You dumb little cu—"

"Boss?"

Yet another blond supple vampire appeared in the next moment. Illyria remembered this insipid creature had died on this night. Spike stopped when he saw the less intelligent vampire come in to the room.

"What is it, Harmony? I told you I wanted to be alone!" Buffy, the alpha vampire said.

"Right, I'm- right—" this Harmony vampire stammered.

She showed discomfort with what The Buffy vampire was doing with Faith.

"But, you said that you wanted to know if anyone in the building was getting suspicious. The typing pool is getting suspicious. They usually get their bagel cart by now and—"

"Okay, number one, when I said that I meant people who mattered, and number two what is this 1957? Who still has a typing pool?"

"Well, it's really data entry but the head of it is a Mad'ison demon who's super old so she calls it the typing pool and—"

"Do I look like I care? Who gets the bagels? Did I kill that person or something?"

"No, it's me. Oh, it's me! I forgot with you coming to me and asking me to be your secret number 2. Um, boss, I couldn't help over-hearing, vamp perk and all. Are you really going to turn this total skank? I don't think she's all that pretty. Maybe in a white trash way, but—I don't usually go that way, but for you, I would," the inferior vampire said, "We could make out and stuff for our boyfriends, like if our boyfriends were Angel and Spike. I always thought you were pretty in high school. You just weren't—"

"Harmony, get the bagels! And I'll consider it."

"Okay, boss."

Illyria watched the beta vampire leave and wanted to kill her for insulting Faith, even though she knew a beta would always ally with an alpha of its cohort.

"Don't worry I'm not really considering it. She's right though, you're white-trash-beautiful," Buffy the vampire said.

She grabbed hold of Faith's breast in her black T-shirt and shook them.

"And I'm so glad you lost your prison pudge."''

Illyria had to swallow her fury.

"Those are called curves, you anorexic 'ho, and I still got 'em," Faith said, "I've just lost my appetite for a couple days chasing your dead stench. When you get your soul back, we'll get you some perfume and you can cuddle against the curves if you're still feeling experimental."

"Good on you, love," Spike said to himself.

Illyria had almost temporarily forgotten his existence in her fury.

"Do you really think you're going to be be the one to get me out of this, to imprison me back into my old sad poor-little-girl-hero-life and then we'll braid each others hair?" Buffy said, "You're not good enough for me to even force myself on you. But, I know who you're just right for. The one I'm going to make sire you. The one you fucked just last night from the smell of it. I'll narrow it down in case you lost track. His name rhymes with psyche."

Illyria had heard something about this being the vampire's plan until she and Wesley stopped it by cursing her. Despite being physically and intellectually powerful this Buffy Slayer Vampire was emotionally weak and decided to end her life rather than live with the burden of a soul.

"Leave him alone!" Faith said.

Faith was afraid for Spike though at this point Faith had only shared coitus with him once. Their connection was strong. Faith quickly hid her fear. She did this well.

"I mean, god, B, get a new toy already. You've been with—what—four guys? You're still such a good girl. I'm sure I showed Spike a new thing or two."

The Buffy vampire leaned into Faith growling. Illyria could see Faith's dark round eyes just over the vampire's blonde head and white outfitted back as the vampire stood in front of Faith's bound body.

"I will own him, and he will own you, and you will be controlled. You know what this is?"

Now the vampire kneeled up and showed Faith a syringe with pale yellow liquid. Faith did not answer.

"Hell in a hypodermic, they call it. I thought you might be into it given your history with needles, comas, and mind-walks. Only you walk this alone. I don't know exactly what it does blah, blah, blah science meets dark arts… Blah, blah, blah, makes you suspended in your worst state of fear. Minutes feel like years blah, blah, blah. You won't be able to move or scream or get away. You'll be locked in this good ol' metal tomb. Doing what you do best, lying on your back going crazy."

The Buffy vampire slapped the reinforced steel door of the tiny room with a casual air. Illyria sensed Faith's fear.

"Unless Spike wants you as a crazy bitch. Then, I'll let him take you out and play with you, but when I'm done with him, he may not. Why would he when he can have me?"

"You're right, B. We both know you're right. So, there's no point in—"

"No, she's not." It was too late when Illyria realized Spike had broken away and went into the room.

"She's not," he said to Faith, "Hi, it's good to see you again. I've missed you terribly."

He had nothing but a sword and a stake. He was not even holding them. They were tucked in the back of his coat. He was such a fool! Illyria's face cringed as she ran quietly and snuck into the room behind the tiny narrow Buffy vampire. She could not fully heal herself with the foul magik that radiated from the small room behind where Faith was strapped. However, she would still enjoy staining the vampire's white ensemble with blood. Spike's face briefly looked beyond the tiny blond vampire and told Illyria to wait to strike. Faith saw Illyria too. Illyria knew Faith did not know her now and was a bit afraid, but she was a true Warrior and showed no sign of this in her face.

"Spike. Way to ruin a girl's entrance," The Buffy vampire said as she only focused on him, "It's good to see you too. I was going to call you in a minute. I swear, and demand to know why you—"

"Buffy, it's been—been so long," Spike said.

For a moment Illyria sensed his heartbreak, but only for a moment. The next moment was when Illyria decided to tackle the soulless vampire.

"And I wasn't talking to you, you hack Darla junior bitch," Spike said as Illyria grabbed the Slayer Vampire.

"God, do I really have to go through this all again?" he grumbled and then turned to Faith.

"Time travel is a bitch. At least maybe now we can get Buffy back now, but you, you I'm not letting go of if it kills me. And you do look a little thin."

Spike spoke to Faith while Illyria subdued the Buffy vampire. Faith had that line of confusion on her beaten face, but she also smiled. Faith's face was always so full of humanity. Faith's face had helped Illyria understand humanity as well as her words.

Now, Illyria wasn't at her strongest; she was barely stronger than the Slayer Vampire. However, the Buffy vampire seemed shocked and unfocused due to the surprise of Illyria, and shocked and unfocused due to Spike's betrayal. Illyria sensed feeling familiar to her radiating off the Slayer Vampire. The Buffy vampire felt shocked and betrayed by Spike's lack of worship. Though she understood her feelings, this cruel selfish half-breed in the least didn't impress Illyria. When the Slayer Vampire got free and struck her, Illyria found she was full of rage. She began punching the vampire furiously.

"Spike!" Faith yelled, "Stop her."

Illyria stopped punching the Buffy vampire who was now staggering on her feet. Faith was fearful, fearful of Illyria.

"What are you—" Faith stammered to Spike, "Don't let that undead Fred thing kill her. We can still—"

"Sorry," Spike said shaking his head.

He seemed to be in some sort of happy trance just staring at Faith, and now he had shaken himself out of it. Faith did not know Illyria in this time-line and understandably called her names as the others did.

"Yes, we can still ensoul her," Spike said and he looked even happier as he only looked at Faith, "Stop it, Blue."

"I have already ceased," Illyria said and then the staggering Slayer Vampire fainted to the ground.

"Is she okay?" Faith asked.

"There is still strength in her," Illyria said.

She could not lecture Faith on the weakness of sympathy for enemies. Illyria could not do this even when she and Faith were connected in the previous time-line.

"We'll just strap her up to this table see how she likes it when it's turned," Spike said.

Illyria grabbed the Buffy vampire roughly and searched on her person until she found what she was looking for.

"The keys," Illyria said as she gave the keys to unlock the steel bars to Spike.

"Spike—" Faith began.

Illyria understood she was confused. Faith had that small vertical line between her brows. This line could be seen even though Faith's brow was smeared with her crimson blood. There was a large bruise on her jaw line. Her hair was long and light brown. It looked kissed by the sun. She was wearing a lose black T-shit and her usual black boots and jeans. Illyria desired Faith to have slightly shorter darker hair and be dressed in a tight colorful tank top, shorts, and flip-flops with a braided ring on her finger. She did not want Faith to be bruised or bloody. That was how Faith had been in the former timeline at her happiest. Illyria was at least pleased Faith still had her big dark round eyes with the long feminine lashes for Spike.

Spike unlocked Faith. When he undid the last bar he lifted her down gently by her arms.

"You are a little thin," he said to her, "We have all the time in the world to fix that and everything else."

"This is my shirt, isn't it? You borrowed it because yours was all bloody."

"Um, yeah, I thought you said that was cool," she said.

"It's cool, baby, very cool," Spike said.

Illyria quickly lifted the tiny strong Slayer vampire onto the vertical table and locked the three reinforced steel straps. The Buffy vampire stirred.

"Spike, how could you—" she began.

"Shut-up!" Spike roared, "You're lucky I don't have time for you before the soul patrol gets here. "

"Spike, " Faith spoke, "it's not that it's not good to see you but when did you team up with the stringy smurf? We have to—"

Illyria found that she could not contain her will to speak.

"Faith, it is pleasing to see you. I know you have current concerns, but the gestalt will prove pleasing. We will make a better fate for you this time. I know a longer connection to Spike would please you, though you acted like it was of small consequence. When you were betrothed I could sense that you shook with happiness when it was hidden to all others. I hope you will have time to continue to impart your wisdom of humanity onto me. I have found it most helpful, particularly in how to cope with the grief of loss and unrequited affections. I hope you can regain your fondness for me but I will not falter if you do not."

"Shh, shut-it, little girl blue," Spike said, "You'll get your friend back in due time."

Spike was right. Once she spoke this she regretted it. That was not her plan. In fact, that was the opposite of it. She had decided it was best to tell Faith little. Illyria regretted being forced into a human form, plain, and existence where she need ever speak.

"Okay," Faith drawled, "Spike, that chick, or whatever she, is isn't stable. It's bad when I'm the sanest girl in the room. We have to—"

"Yes, yes, we have to get the witch here with Wes. We have to save Buffy. I know. You never told me she almost- Oh, I guess it doesn't matter. By gones. I love when you get that little line between your—"

Spike stopped speaking to kiss between Faith's brows. He did this with the full knowledge that Faith had no knowledge of their connections in the other timeline. At least, Illyria was not the biggest fool.

"Dude, what the fu—" Faith began.

"I'm sorry," he said and offered his hand to be shaken.

"Hi, I'm your new and improved Spike. I'm your husband," he said showing his ring.

Illyria again wondered why she ever bothered to speak to Spike let alone plan strategies with the impulsive half-breed.

"I've traveled back in time with The Mighty Blue here to save you," he said to Faith.

Faith, of course, looked wide-eyed and dubious, but Illyria sensed no fear.

"You don't believe me?" he asked, "You never really had a wedding fantasy like other girls, but if you ever did get married you wanted to go to Vegas and do it with one of those drive through windows wearing nothing. Then you wanted to get one of those champagne glass tubs and do a real champagne bath. It turns out you can't do that. It'll kill you. But, we did the traditional thing you wanted the Albanian bread with the coins. What was it called?"

"Kulac," Illyria barked.

"Kulac! Wasn't very good, but-"

Faith looked at him and said: "I'm just gonna…"

She trailed off and sank to the floor and sat her eyes wide, looking at neither of them.

"I told you the truth would overwhelm her!" Illyria said.

"And I told you to shut-up. She doesn't want to be toyed with, lied to. If I didn't tell her I loved her, that she was the best thing in the word, that this time I wouldn't lose her I'd be bloody lying, and I promised never to lie to her!"

"She also does not want demands to be made on her. She'll feel suffocated. Pressured. Set to fail. You think you know her best, but you are often wrong, half-breed."

As Illyria spoke Faith sprung up and walked away. Illyria was waiting to sense her fear.

"This is hands down…this is… this is—" Faith stammered as she walked back sliding her hands down her face.

"Bullshit!" the Buffy vampire spat and writhed in the steel straps.

"Please," the blond one said, "like someone, even Spike, would marry you. It's a spell, or what? Did you lose a bet, Sp—"?

Illyria saw Faith spring quickly and her fist flew to the vampire's jaw and connected.

"Shut the fuck up, B!"

The Buffy vampire returned to its semi-conscious state. Faith pulled out a chair that was at what was unmistakably a torture table and sat slumped and slack-jawed. Then she looked over at Spike.

"This is the weirdest fucking day of my life," Faith said, "and I had weird ones. Really fucking bizarre, you know body swaps, but—Time travel? But, it can't be real. I watched that wheelchair guy and he said—Oh, are there two of you guys now? Like, I mean two of each? I've seen Dr. Who."

"No, thank god!" he said, "I asked that. I'd hate to have to fight my other self when he finally realizes how much he wants you."

"That's—that's—You said you lost me. Did I freak out and leave or—"

"Oh, no! We were very happy, very happy. You died is all, helping Angel with his dumb plan to wipe this place out."

Faith was only looking at Spike. He came over to her and knelt at her chair. She made no move to go closer to him but didn't pull away. Illyria stayed where she was guarding the strapped Buffy vampire.

"Oh, well," Faith said, "I'm sure it was for the good—"

"It was a useless death for a superior Warrior of Humanity! Wolfram and Hart's reign ended, but L.A. fell into Hell. The world was soon to follow!" Illyria roared.

"Oh, shit, well, I tried," Faith shrugged, "You gotta try, right?"

"Everyday I regretted not forbidding you to go to your death, not stopping you," Illyria said.

Faith got out of the chair and looked at Illyria and then looked away and paced again.

"We're friends me and—and-" Faith pointed to Illyria.

"Illyria," Spike said, "You call her Illy or Ill. I'll say you're friends. She traveled back in time to save you bringing me along even though she doesn't like me all that much because she knows you do."

"I had no interest in continuing existence on the earth without you as my guide. As for Spike, he's not aesthetically unpleasing, and he was a very useful and devoted pet to you. You were extremely connected. I needed him to ground me to a point in time to find you alive," Illyria said.

Illyria did not realize how foreign she was to Faith, or she had forgotten she was. It was not a pleasant feeling.

"And look at the gem point we got," Spike said, "I guess it is good. We can save Buffy now. But, you really have to stop throwing yourself on the sword because I'm not Dr. Who and I know she's blue but she isn't a T.A.R.D.I.S. We only get one."

"Wait, you mean we didn't save B before? How did—I mean, what—I'm—I'm just not used to—If B wasn't around how was I not just fucking everything up. How were you and I not all fucked up, guilty and shit? You watch Dr. Who?"

"Oh, like you wouldn't act like you didn't deserve happiness no matter what happened. We had a really good system you an' I. You'd act like you didn't want love and then I'd threaten to chase you 'till the ends of the earth with it, and you'd call me stupid and give up. The mind-blowing sex helped too often after Dr. Who."

"You are stupid," Faith said gently, "I mean, you must be if you married me. I don't even understand the time plots to Dr. Who. I just like the drama. You—you have to be a glutton for punishment. Angel…"

"…did his penance by saving the world and I did mine by bein' with you. You say that, said that, all the time," Spike completed, "And no one understands the plots to Dr. Who beyond the drama."

Faith and Spike were silent for only a moment. They looked at only each other. Faith had one arm crossed over her chest, which held her elbow while her fast healing hand touched her face.

"It's not exactly fair," Faith said, "You know all this stuff about me, or past future me, and I only know you're B's ex that I screwed once that mostly doesn't judge me, accept for that one time; and you…"

She pointed to Illyria who was pleased to be noticed. Illyria found she did not mind Faith and Spike's hyper-focus on each other and hidden confusing emotional combinations. Illyria found she minded that Faith was still talking about the other former Slayer now vampire. Faith would have to mourn her again, and they would have to rebuild all over again.

"You're a—I don't know what you are. What if I don't do whatever I did for you before? It's not fair."

"Well, life's not fair," Spike said.

"I guess the rock 'em sock 'em sex will have to make u—"

Illyria suddenly felt like her body was being ripped in half as it was gripped and broken over a stone. It was the Buffy vampire. She had some how broken free of reinforced steel. Impossible! Yet, she had broken Illyria over her knee. Illyria felt a very strong stinging and burning sensation on her arm that reminded her of the scorpions of The G'Lah Dimension. She quickly realized the Buffy vampire had injected her with the paralyzing serum.

No!" Faith yelled.

The vampire dropped Illyria's body to the floor and she was physically paralyzed. She supposed the Hell would start taking over her mind, but she had been in Hell dimensions before.

"That's right, life isn't fair," the vampire said, "Wow, turns out Ms. Freeze shatters easy. You don't get to have a powerful BFF, Faith. You don't get to run off with the with the white-trash-butch version of me, Spike."

"She's not the—"

The vampire kicked Spike across the room.

"Spike!" Faith yelled, "B, he—he doesn't mean anything to me. None of that happened. He's still yours. You can just kick my ass for tryin' to take him. You don't have to hurt him. He's worth more-"

"Okay, I'll hurt you," the Buffy vampire said, "That's what works best with him."

The vampire then grabbed Faith and bit her on the neck and sucked briefly, then stopped and tilted Faith towards her in her strong thin arms. Illyria sensed some energy around the vampire. The vampire was blocking her own senses somehow. It was magik.

"I always knew you weren't as good as you said," the vampire said, "You're the fifth Slayer I've had and you taste so tired and old, I can just throw you away. That's how little you matter."

Then she dragged Faith over a counter that jutted out of the wall and injected Faith with yet another syringe of serum. Faith whimpered and reached out to Spike who was coming back across the room injured.

"No! You-" Spike cried.

He stopped when Faith fell limp with her eyes still open.

"I mean really," the Buffy Vampire said, "Dracula's magik is more useful and less old and tired than you, Faith."

She quickly put Faith back on the vertical table and Illyria saw the steel bars lock across Faith body independent of touch. Yet more magik. Wretched magik. That was how the Buffy vampire escaped the table and now locked up Faith. It was also how she resisted the allure of Faith's blood. The vampire was a liar she lusted for Faith's blood. Illyria struggled to move and failed. Illyria realized she could use the energy of the magik the Buffy vampire had put out to heal herself.

"Don't worry, I'm not totally heartless. Just soulless," the Buffy demon said, "Say goodbye to your wife, Spike. She can see you and hear you, but in a minute or two the bad acid trip is gonna set in. I wonder how long it'll take her to go crazy. She wasn't the champion of sanity to begin with."

"Better and stronger than you!" Spike cried, "You, wanting to die with your nice house and your nice friends. Still wining about your lost youth. She had nothing and no one and she—"

"You—fickle—piece—of—shit!" the Buffy vampire roared, as she seemed to stomp on Spike's head.

Illyria wasn't sure because she had to crawl along the ground and get her shell of a body moving. Illyria was injured and paralyzed and was not as strongly skilled at reading vampires, but she knew Spike had wounded the other stronger vampire emotionally. She realized Spike intended to do this because he thought it was too late to salvage the situation. He thought they were doomed. Spike was wrong! Illyria knew he was wrong because he had to be, and he was wrong because Illyria was slowly regaining her ability to move with the energy of the soulless vampire's magik.

"No, you know, none of this really surprises me. Well, okay maybe the time travel thing, a little, and the corpse bride I tore up. Ugh, where did it go? It crawled off to die. You seeing this, Faith? Your varicose veiny BFF is dying." The vampire said.

From where Illyria was she could see that the vampire was touching Faith's motionless face.

"Oh, maybe I'd get more of a reaction from her if she lived out all that stuff you were blathering on about out. Like the reactions I'm going to get out of you," she said to Spike.

Illyria saw Spike broken and bleeding as he crawled up to where Faith was strapped and began to struggle with the keys. It was beyond foolish. The Buffy vampire could stop him in a second. Instead she watched as Spike slowly and painfully unlocked Faith. He had Faith in his arms as he could barely stand himself.

"Where you goin', Spikey? Gonna have fun with her like that? You look too beat from your trip for that. Why don't you let me have her?" the vampire said as she got in front of him.

She pushed Spike down and grabbed Faith's body, but Spike wouldn't let Faith's legs go.

"It wasn't really a request. I was just being polite. You want to have a little tug-of-war and tear all her curves straight it's fine by me," she said.

Spike let Faith go and sobbed on the floor in his injured state. Illyria did not find this pitiful. She found she had respect for his continued attempt and his anguish.

"God, Spike! Will you ever be your own man, or even just a man at all?" the vampire said.

Illyria was beyond weary of this vampire and beyond wishing to do violence. Illyria would do violence and beyond. She stood before the vampire pushing to shake off the paralysis. She used the last of the residual magik energy the Buffy vampire created to heal.

"I find what this world considers an ideal male specimen overrated," she said to the vampire, "Spike is superior to that and he doesn't desire you any longer. You are no longer a true female. You are a monster. I have knowledge of this, as I am a monster in a female form as well. I know how to use your monstrous magic against you. Vanity is your weakness. You may have won if you hadn't used magik to falsely prove you did not want my truly female friend. I want you to remember that in your defeat. Now give her to me and I will let you live."

The vampire, with Faith over her shoulder, punched Illyria. Illyria stumbled back. She was not as fully over the paralysis as she thought.

"I don't have time for this shit," the vampire said, "I have a good vampire to de-soul. Faith, Spike, you were always more trouble than you were worth."

The Buffy vampire tilted the vertical table so it was flat. She threw Faith on it and shoved the table into the small room and shut the heavy reinforced steel door.

"No! Faith! Faith!" Spike was now on his feel, barely, and pounding on the door.

"Aw, Princess Leia wants her Han Solo back_?" _ The vampire said and laughed.

"Butch can't hear you anymore, princess" she continued, "She's frozen in her own private Hell. The injection and the room kind of work together. It's a science/magic combo. Maybe that's why the injection didn't work on the Blue thingie fully. You'd think you'd have known all this with your time travel. Only whatever happened last time isn't going to now, is it? Thanks for the heads-up on what I did wrong though. How far into the future are you from? Next, you can tell me what happens on _Desperate Housewives?_"

"I believe it ended with justice served," Illyria said.

She took Spike's sword and stabbed the vampire though the heart swiftly.

"Your injection didn't work on me because I've known worlds-dimensions of Hell, that you have never dreamed. I can make you experience them without help from your wretched science or magik. I will do this unless you open the door and get the anecdote for Faith the true Slayer of Vampires."

"You bitch," the vampire said, "Do you know how much this outfit costs?"

Illyria twisted the sword and heard the dry guts moving. She was most satisfied when the vampire yelled in pain.

"Willow and Wes are on their way with the soul spell, Buffy" Spike said, "You're dark side isn't gonna win, and I know, I believe, your light is in there somewhere, love. You didn't kill Faith or me. So, part of you must-"

"Anything in me that lied about not wanting to see you and that bitch suffer is dea—"

The Buffy vampire stopped her words and yelled as Illyria poked the sword through the Slayer Vampire further. Illyria was so tired of Spike and Faith's concern for this Buffy half-breed that had seemed to do more damage to them than they ever did to her.

"I will cut the extremities off your shell after I rip out your shriveled black heart, if you do not open the door and give me the anecdote for Faith the Vampire Slayer," Illyria said

"So, what is it with you? Faith sucked your blue Gatorade ice dick when Spikey was out buying her tampons?" the Buffy vampire laughed, "You have to be a man under there. You have no boobs hidden in that cheesy leather suit and there is no way Faith could ever—Aaaaah"

Illyria moved the sword to find the heart.

"You will find your insults on gender and sexuality lost on me. My body is nothing but a shell to me and that is what yours will be to you if you do not-

"No," Spike interrupted, "No permanent damage. No taking out her heart. She just needs her soul to get it working is all."

"You cannot still have feelings for this cruel weak creature!" Illyria roared, "I am aware that you all have this history, but it is nothing more than that. She is not the worthy warrior you remember. She is a vile—"

"We all go to a bad place sooner or later, love," Spike said, "If I thought maiming would work I'd do it in a second."

Illyria heard motion behind her. She could sense whom it was—Wesley.

"We're here! Sorry, this underground floor is a labyrinth and I couldn't do a locator spell because… " The red-headed Wicca Illyria remember came running in with Wesley.

Her voice trailed-off and Illyria sensed the powerful Wicca's fear towards her because she held the Buffy vampire impaled by the sword.

"Best Friends suck," the beaten vampire said in pain as she looked at the redheaded Wicca.

Illyria sensed the vampire knew she was beaten and she laughed with bitterness.

"Faith, of course," she said, "I have to get screwed by Faith, and I never got to really screw her, not in all the ways I wanted. I guess you won't get that either, huh Spike?"

"Illyria, are you all right?" Wesley said, "Spike was brief on the phone but, time travel could have killed you. Not to mention tear a hole in-Why would you—"

"I don't wish to waste time speaking, Wesley. I demand you open that door that Faith Lehane, whom you failed in Watching, lays behind before you assist this creature with a soul!"

Illyria would once have felt so grateful for this human man's concern and interest. Now that she had it, it was of no consequence.

"You'll never have her, never," the Buffy vampire said as she looked at Illyria, ""It's too late now, anyway. She's already broken. She probably wouldn't even remember her name, let alone yours. What was your name again?"

"Mariska? Illyria?" male whispers of names.

Connor was patting, rubbing, the small of her back to wake her from her vision's past. Strong noble whispers of names, but were the names strong and noble? Illyria wondered. She also wondered if her name need still be Illyria in child Faith Lehane's room. She had heard Connor had different names too.

"You need not call me by the mother's name. She is asleep. Perhaps you should not call me by Ill- that name either. It may trigger memories in her sleep."

"So, I'll just call you 'big blue mama.' The corporate magik should have wiped all of her bad times," he said.

He moved around to the other side of the bed to stare at Faith. Illyria barely tolerated even Spike staring at Faith in this vulnerable state, but she did not chastise Connor.

"As it did with you? We both know magik here is wretched and unreliable!" she snapped.

"True that, but sometimes it's worth it. The memories Angel gave me helped me find peace. Even though I know they aren't real, he gave me a real family."

"A real family. If that what it takes for Faith to have peace I fear that we are failing," she said.

"Well your fear is stupid. What we—you, are giving to Faith is very real. Real people who know her and love her when no one made them. Anyway, speaking of peace how are you doing with that?" he spoke quietly for Faith's sake.

He needn't speak so quiet. Faith was a heavy sleeper. Illyria would know the instant Faith awoke. There was no danger of her over hearing something that would trouble her. She spoke quietly anyway.

"Peace was never something I desired. My almost nightly remembrance of how I failed Faith keeps me steadfast in my goal to serve her as her re-growing mind sees me, as her mother."

"Yeah, that can't be easy," he said.

He had opened the door so the hallway light poured in and she could see his large eyes looking at as she sat up on the bed. She turned away from him. She was in the form of Faith's mother, who had been called Marika Ellen Dimërs. Her thin legs hung off the bed in the blue fabric speckled with white. Illyria wondered what it would be like to take on the form of a large thick female, or one in a dress. She decided she would not like it. Marika Ellen Dimërs's form was where she belonged now, though the form of the original shell, Winifred Burkle appeared when she lost all efforts. Illyria rarely lost all efforts, but she decided to appear as the shell now to Connor.

"I once ruled seven dimensions simultaneously. I was way beyond what most humans can fathom as a god, except I never created anything. When Faith saw me as the mother I went to Wolfram & Hart achieves and beyond and found everything I could on the mother of Faith Lehane. I studied it all, from how she appeared to how she spoke and thought. It amazed me how such a flawed, seemingly weak, creature could create such a being as Faith Lehane where I never could."

"I don't think it's the creating that matters. It's what you do after. Speaking of parents who passed that job off; my Dad wants to talk to you."

Connor had come around to side of the bed she sat on and smiled.

"He came to tell me that Slayer Vampire abomination has revealed herself awake and aware," Illyria said.

"Really? That's what all his stress is about? Her again? The other Slayer, now Vampire Slayer Vampire, or is it Vampire formerly known as…Out of all the stuff that's happened with time-lines, and erased memories, and cursed souls, the thing I can't get my head around is to what to call that Buffy the Vampire Slayer vampire girl."

"She is not a girl! She is a wicked bitch and threat to my baby girl!" Illyria had slipped and was speaking in the mother's voice.

She felt temporary disgrace and quickly regained her composure. It seemed at times it was easier to express herself in the mother's words.

"Did you do that on purpose because it was kinda hot?" Connor said.

She knew that was not a question to be answered. Connor often flummoxed Illyria with his odd relational style, but unlike all other males he never made her angry. Why she could not say.

"Your father wishes to report he has control of the second vampire with a cursed soul and assert Faith is now safe."

"Great another possible name for Buffy. Yeah, that's dad, controlling and asserting for safety," Connor said.

"And yet, Faith is not safe due to him. He will never kill the Slayer Half-Breed. He is blinded their history and refuses to see her as a threat. I suppose that is no reason for me to lose my composure as I did. I now understand the value of human history," Illyria said, "You said the appearance of Marika Ellen Dimërs form was 'hot.' So, you prefer The Mother's form to my own. Not that either of them are my true form. My true form is—"

Illyria had stood up and went to walk past Connor when he grabbed hold of her arms that were in the form of her shell's arms. He pressed his mouth to hers and created suction and stuck the tip of his tongue into her mouth.

"I'm sorry. That was rude. What were you saying?" he said.

"That my true form could barely be contained in this state. The state of Oregon. You have kissed me on the mouth, Connor son of Angel," she said.

"Yeah, I wanted to wait for a good time but there never is one around here," he said.

"You speak the truth. Perhaps a better place would be outside of Child Faith Lehane's room as she sleeps."

Connor was rarely angry and he always truthful.

"Right, I—I'm sorry did you say the state of Oregon? I've always liked big girls. But, what state are you in now with me kissing y-" he began.

"You've got to be bloody kidding me!"

Illyria heard Spike roar from down below. Illyria realized Connor had rare prized qualities in this house of male creatures.

"They have already begun fighting about the Fallen Slayer Buffy vampire," she said to Connor, "If those freakin' chuckleheads wake my baby girl I knock their heads together."

Illyria stopped. She had done it again. She had gone back into the mother's words. Had she gone to her form?

"That is so cool. You are so cool, big blue Mama," Connor said.

He took her hand, which she noticed looked delicate and tiny with blue fingernails. She ran ahead to go downstairs to shut those undead a-holes up. She kept hold of Connor son of Angel's hand.

_That hurt me to write. It felt like everyone was doing stuff without me, especially Spike trying to drag Faith away and don't get me started on Buffy. I feel for all of them! More soon…Feedback appreciated. _


	6. Chapter 6

_Maybe I got a little side-tracked. Here's some bickering and foreshadowing and Connor/Illyria._

* * *

"You have no right to give me bloody advice about this!" Spike yelled from downstairs.

Connor could feel Illyria's muscles coiled up in her body even though he was only holding her hand. It was like her muscles tensed up the air around him. Wow, if he ever did get her alone in a bed he couldn't imagine what actually touching her would be like. Actually, he could. He imagined it would be really really great. Now she sprung out of the room like she was on fire with Spike's yelling.

Connor shut Faith's door behind them and followed her down the open staircase into the huge open room that almost contained the whole house. It was very modern for a god-king and/or a Boston girl of the 90s. Illyria said she didn't like walls. Connor was pretty sure she just wanted to watch Faith better. She was so dominantly adorable.

"You don't know what you're talking about, you stupid Git!"

This was it. The Great War Connor was preparing for between Spike and his father.

"Spike, calm down," Connor heard his dad say, "And I do. You can't just run at these things like a battering ram. You need strategy. If you just—"

Of course, like most wars these days it was endless with many many battles and you just got sick of watching it. Spike was holding his Play Station controller and scowling on the edge of the couch.

"This from the CEO that led us all to a literal Hell and got The Last Chosen Slayer killed. I bet you stole everyone's pensions as an encore t-"

"Fine. Get killed again. I don't care," Angel said.

But, tonight's battle promised to be epic. Tonight was The Battle of Buffy. Connor was sure there had been other Battles of Buffy. Connor had the great luck of missing those. But, he was positive he had never missed a battle about Buffy Summers like this: her being a vampire cursed with a soul that was now out of her catatonic state. Connor was good and ready for this throw down.

"You get killed again," Spike said, "Oh that's right you never did, you just let her die, and Gunn and—"

Connor almost wished he could go into a catatonic state during these grumpy old man tiffs with Spike and Angel. He'd never been in one of those. He had just been full of rage and miserable. Maybe it would have been better if he went into a catatonic state. No, he shouldn't joke about that, not even to himself. He'd seen Faith like that twice and it was terrible. She'd go out of it and be insane and screaming. Spike and Illyria were the only people that could calm her.

"Spike, you've been playing that video game for the last few years. I just want you to beat it already because I can't stand watching it anymore. If you stop just running through the—"

"You are fighting about Crash Bandicoot," Illyria said.

She wasn't wrong to be confused.

"No, not really," Connor said, "They're really fighting about the same thing they always fight about: The Slayers."

He crashed down on the couch to watch Spike's bandicoot die again. This game was really old. It wasn't like Spike to hang on to something so old. He'd hold onto Faith forever, but she wasn't old. She was young, too young, way way too young. Not that Connor got the sense Spike was waiting. That would make what happened with Connor and Cordelia look like a Disney movie.

"Yeah," Spike said, "Get one man's wife killed and he doesn't let it go."

"For the last time," Angel said, "I am not going to apologize for something I did in another time-line. It never happened! You told me to wait, and here I am, waiting, like an idiot while The Black Thorne grow stronger every—"

"The only reason you listened to me was because I got the kid on my side. You don't even care that you got her killed."

That was Connor. He was _The Kid_. Faith called him that too once. Now she was the kid, really. Sometimes he missed her. The grown her, but he loved the kid her, but it was really all the same her, and not. Just like Connor was the same Connor-and-not, with all his memories real and fake. They didn't put any fake memories into Faith. They had taken some real ones out.

"Because it didn't happen!" Angel snapped, "You were the one that messed up, not me."

"Right, I messed up tryin' to fix what you did and now I have to lie to her every day," Spike said.

"She's alive. You got what you wanted. You never seem to get that these things have a price," Angel said.

Connor didn't know exactly what they did to Faith's brain. He could have researched that part but it just made him to miserable. He knew she only remembered up to 1989 because that was before anything too bad had happened to her.

Buffy the vampire put her in The Infinity Room and injected her with Eternal Deprivation. Connor had researched that part. The Infinity Room made you think that you were frozen in time while it rushed by you simultaneously, like a really bad acid trip.

Eternal Deprivation froze up your body. It made it so you couldn't move except for your autonomic nervous system. It stopped your aging .You could stay like that forever. You didn't need to eat or pee or do anything. But, that wasn't all it did. It also stripped down you amygdala and over-activated your hippocampus.

It made it so you felt like you lived every bad thing that ever happened to you over and over, or maybe at once. It also left you thinking there was no way you could defend yourself. Connor didn't know how Faith had survived as well as she had.

"Angel is right," Illyria said, "We have Faith Lehane whole and intact. We have a chance to give her a pleasant life and train her properly. With this she will be the finest warrior this world has ever known."

"Easy for you to say," Spike said, "You love playing Mother Hen, some earth-shattering hell-beast you turned out to be, blue bell. God, I need a fag!"

But, he said it softly without any heat as he searched his pockets for a cigarette. Even Spike could see what Illyria was doing for Faith. No one was more devoted to being Faith's mom, or hotter. Connor wasn't forgetting he finally kissed her! He wished he could get his dad and Spike out of here to be with her, but maybe that was rushing things.

"Your weaknesses for human addictions perplexes me," Illyria said, "You will see a creature far beyond an earth shattering Hell-Beast if you dare to light that foul cancer-stick up in here where my—where Faith is sleeping."

Man! Illyria slipped into being Marishka, Faith's mom, for a second. Spike even smiled. Connor knew Illyria had no idea how good she looked mixed with that South Boston olive-skinned tuff girl thing. If she knew, she wouldn't do it because she was so hot it was was torturing Connor. Unless she would be into torturing him. Connor had to stop these thoughts, or maybe he didn't. He could move things along with Angel and Spike here and see what being alone with Illyria would bring.

"You're going to tell them, right Angel?" Connor said, "The reason you came here. The big news. I don't know why it's so-"

"What are you talking about?" Angel demanded.

"Seriously?" Connor sighed, "Oh, I get it. You were gonna feel them out, and if you didn't like what you felt then you weren't gonna say anything."

"Whatever it is," Spike said, "I don't bloody care. How many times do we have to go over this? We aren't going to fight any of your battles. The Blue Bird and my's only mission is to take care of Faith and-"

"Right," Angel said, "You're right. It's nothing important that I can't take care of."

Spike had his cigarette in his mouth unlit like an addict stuck in an airplane bathroom. Illyria was right. Why did he need to smoke? The cigarette suddenly drooped in his mouth like a lowered gun as Spike looked at Angel's face. It dangled as he spoke.

"Balls!" he said, "It's her, isn't it? She's awake."

"Spike—" Angel began.

Buffy Summers was a She with a capital S. Yet another name for her. Connor knew form all his up-bringings the more names you had the more powerful you were. Connor had his share of names but, this girl, once Slayer, now en-souled vampire had to be pretty damned powerful.

"She was never truly slumbering," Illyria said, "But now she is more awake. I could sense it. The power."

Cool. Connor had to ask Illyria how that sensing thing worked, even though she didn't look very happy about it now. He didn't really get why this Buffy thing was all so bad. It's not that Connor wouldn't love to rip apart the vampire that hurt Faith, but Buffy Summers had a soul now. Let her be all gloomy like Dad and roam the earth making up for what she did. As far as Connor could understand as long as Buffy and his father didn't get all coital everything would be fine.

"It's not about her power. I know her enough to know she'll want to come 'round here. Convincing herself showing up to apologize is some noble righteous act. And I know she'll tear this house apart with her blasted good intentions. Faith can't see her. No telling what it'll trigger." Spike said.

Spike wasn't yelling and gnashing like usual. Connor saw he was sad.

"Spike is right. If that bitch comes here it'll mess with my baby's head, and then I will rip out her spine and feed it to her," Illyria said.

Now she was full-on Faith's mom, Marishka-looking and sounding.

"Careful there, Blue. Sometimes I can't tell if it's you, or my girl's mum," Spike said.

"I'm always the god-king," she said, "At times I just find speaking and looking this way expresses my sentiments to do violence, or other human-like actions, more accurately."

She stayed in Marishka form.

"I think it's sexy," Connor said.

Illyria said nothing but sat next to him on the couch.

"There's no need for violence," Angel said, "or any other human-like—There's no need for anything. She's not catatonic anymore, that's all. She wanted to leave the Wolfram and Hart suite, but I convinced her to stay."

"I'm sure. The only way you could do that is if you—Sod! Please tell me the two of you cursed idiots know better than to shag each other. If you—"

"Spike! Nothing is going to happen," dad snapped at Spike, "You do remember that we took away both of their memories that the other one existed. You should remember, you sure did bitch about it, but it worked."

Right, Buffy had no memory of Faith and Faith had no memory of Buffy. Those memories were taken.

"For now," Spike said, "At some point Fanged Goldie Locks will remember every single thing she did to Faith. She has to suffer. She has to truly be cursed."

Connor realized that his memories must have never truly been taken since he could remember Angel so easily once he saw him. Connor hoped the Wolfram and Hart neuroscience mystics worked harder on Faith and Buffy than that.

"You fall in and out of love so easily. You owe Buffy everything," Angel spat.

"I know I wasn't there, but I think when a girl turns into a soulless demon that tortures my wife and locks her in Hell, in two time-lines, it's a good time to fall out of love with a her. Not to mention the fact that she has a thing for my father…and that I have a wife," Connor said lightly.

He learned fast it was better to say these things lightly before Spike could say them darkly and have a whole fight brewing. He'd consider the night a success if he only had to pull them apart once, and if he had time then to make out with Illyria some more maybe.

"You're right you have no experience!" Angel snapped at Connor now.

Dad didn't seem to be picking up on the light mood Connor was trying to create here. Angel sighed and added quietly.

"The point is we fixed everything and Buffy and Faith won't have contact. And…once I love someone it doesn't stop. If you really love someone you don't turn it on and off like a switch especially if they get lost."

Okay, this saying things lightly was backfiring on Connor, which happened sometimes.

"I know tha—" he began to say to his father, but Spike cut him off.

"Never said I had no love for the girl," Spike said to Angel, "It's just I can't have her comin' 'round here ruining Faith's life. Not again. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't hate what we had to do to Faith's head, but she's happy. 'Cept when you mess it up and make her cry."

"You made her cry?" Connor said to Angel.

He knew that made dad feel guilty and guilt might distract him from this Let's-have-a-pointless-fight-with-Spike-about-Buff y-thing. Then, Connor might get a few minutes alone with Illyria.

"Crying is part of being a child," Illyria said.

She put her hand on Connor's knee.

"But, I gotta say I'm not about to tell my kid to suck it up and deal if that vampire shows her face. I don't give a crap what kinda Holy Mary she was before. I don't owe her nothin', that's for damned sure," Illyria said this.

She went from blue and stiff to light brown, pissed, emoting and vulnerable. For a moment she was a combination of all of those features. An ice blue-eyed tiny "ethnically ambiguous" (Albanian) woman in red leather and a retro-90s top.

"I get it, Illyria. No one wants both of them safe more than me. And, can you just pick a personality? It's creepy," Angel said to her.

"It's not creepy to me," Connor said.

She was stern yet maternal. The perfect woman. The perfect woman that had touched his knee.

"I don't care what you think," she said to Angel, "I will fully become myself and kill the Slayer Vampire if I sense her coming near my—near Faith, the only living Chosen Slayer."

"I don't—" Angel began.

"Great, it's a party then. If my ex comes 'round we kill her," Spike said, "We'll have an exit plan for Faith so she'll never see her. You take Faith to a safe house on a remote island with a magical power source nearby, while I, and mother jugs here, slay a vampire Slayer vampire. Settled. "

Connor knew _mother jugs_ was Illyria. The _you_ was Connor. He didn't argue about taking Faith to safety. Spike sighed and got up with the cigarette in his mouth. He rose slowly, not like him, but some sad old man. Angel rose quickly and got in his face. Crap. This wasn't going to be over so fast.

"What? Do you really think I'd let that happen? The only thing that's settled is no one is killing anyone!" How-"

"I love how you think your still in charge," Spike said calmly.

"I'm glad," Angel said, "because I am."

Connor got up and walked slowly over to the millionth Angel/Spike face off with his own sigh.

"I don't think anybody is really in charge," Connor said, "Everyone is just going to do what they have to for Faith."

"You are correct, Connor," Illyria said, "Wicked smart for your age."

She was doing the combination perfectly of her and Faith's mom, like she knew what it did to him.

"You three should get a room," Spike grinned.

"No, they should stop it and I am still in charge. The only one looking out for everyone," Angel said, "I could give a rat's ass as to what happened in your little time-line, Spike. I took your information and I did things differently. What are you doing? Threatening to kill Buffy? Raising Faith with my money?"

"Shit, here we go," Connor grumbled.

He took off his jacket.

"All I'm doing is something you never could- anything and everything for someone I love who had their mind played with because I failed them. I failed them!" Spike yelled, "But, I'm the one making it right not just throwing money and false memories at them, like you."

Connor really liked this jacket. It was soft brown faux leather that looked real. He folded it. It wasn't going to get ripped in some dumb fight.

"And it's on," Connor said, "Ill, I'm going to need your help."

Illyria tilted her head to the side and her eyes glowed blue for a second with a blend of her and Faith's mom's features. Was she surprised?

"You have no idea what anything and everything even means!" Angel yelled as he grabbed Spike's jacket.

Illyria wasn't surprised for long. She pulled Angel away from Spike. Angel didn't put up much of a fight. He just glared at Spike. Spike gave a smile that could only be brought out by successfully pissing of Angel. Connor knew that smile from his own mouth, but he also knew that you rarely got to have it long.

"You're the same old selfish little shit. You only care about one thing, Spike. That's always been your problem. Who is paying for this house so Faith can have the life she needs? Who's paying for the clothes your even wearing? I saved them both, Faith and Buffy," Angel said to Spike, "You didn't even think of trying to do that. For all your passion you're short-sighted and fickle. That's why Buffy could never love you, and if Faith lived long enough she'd see you were just another mistake."

"Oh great," Connor rolled his eyes, "I needed an upper arm workout."

He was prepared to hold back Spike. Angel smiled.

"Do I come off as that easy?" Spike asked.

"Well yeah, when it comes to Faith and Dad and, well yeah," Connor answered.

"Fickle," Spike said calmly, "I was called that before, by Her, while I was getting the bloody shit beat outta me and trying to get my wife's paralyzed body to safety. If she loved me or hated me I was the one who really dealt with Buffy's darkness."

Buffy was a Her with a capital H. Faith was the wife with a small w. It didn't seem fair. Connor's dad wasn't smiling anymore.

"Am I supposed to be shedding tears here?" Angel said, "I used to watch you feed children to the first women you said 'forever' to while you gave her head—a head's up that a Slayer was coming."

"Nice save, dad. I'm not chasing away disturbing images at all," Connor joked.

"And Faith was never your wife here," Angel ignored Connor and spoke to Spike.

"You think that matters to me?" Spike said, "I know Faith'll grow up this time and get to go to school and realize they have fuck-all to teach her and finally realize how smart she always was. You think it matters to me that she can never love me because it mattered to you with Her. I traveled through time just to see Faith alive. I left behind power in an L.A. Hell Dimension and a harem of demon babes most men would have sold their souls for."

"A demon harem?" Connor mouthed to Illyria.

She nodded back solemnly with a face that let Connor know she didn't particularly like the demon harem. What had her life been like in Hell L.A., Connor wondered? She had lived in a world Connor hadn't know, two of them. Just like Connor lived in worlds people around him didn't know.

"My wife can never remember what we had. She can never love me the way that she did, and I don't care. I can't waste time brooding and whining about my lost world where I know she loved me because there's too much to do." Spike said.

The worlds made Connor ache. He could see, feel, that they made Illyria ache too. Angel didn't look so happy either. Everyone was aching for different things they had lost. But, Connor could sense that Illyria wanted him despite that ache or along with it. Whatever it was he'd take it.

"I can't take off and start a bloody detective agency to leave her to figure it out for herself either. No! Instead, I consider myself lucky because I get to be in the life of the person I love the most every single day and I give her what she needs. I'm not the one who's fickle, mate," Spike said.

...And from aching to fighting in 3 seconds. Connor sighed. He looked at Illyria and she looked at him. He wondered how long this was going to take before he could be alone with her.

"I'm sorry, Ill," Connor said, "This is going to be another long night. As fun as all this tragic romance, blame gaming, and reminiscing about sex and child-eating is I think we're getting off the subject. What is the—Oh yeah, Buffy."

"Maybe your not fickle. Only this is a new low, even for you," Angel said.

"I don't wanna kill Her, Liam," Spike said somberly, "I'm just sayin' I will if she won't leave well enough alone with her lack of memory and I know her and ch—"

"I'm not talking about that," Angel said, "I'll kill you myself before it comes to that. I'm talking about what you're really doing here. You and all self-sacrifice and grand speeches are full of it. You know I'm really taking care of things, and you know all your doing is raising Faith so you can have her all to yourself again the second you decide she's old enough."

"Crap. A long long night," Connor said.

Spike roared and Connor had to hold him back. There were the vampire fangs and the face and the growling and everything.

"Grooming her up real good," Angel said, "So, you even want her to go to school to be a pseudo-intellectual like you, but you don't want her to lose her working class sensibility you glorify because you never had it, you posh little poet. You could never stand that I'm always the real daddy that does the work."

"Really, Dad? Really?" Connor grumbled, "Can't you just help me out a little?"

Angel had his fangs and face out too. He just stood with Illyria who was guarding him, but he didn't charge. He smiled. Spike was too strong for Connor. But, Illyria pushed him to the ground. He slid across the hard wood floor.

"Connor is right. Angel is doing this on purpose," she said, "He takes pleasure in taunting Spike that he is a better provider to Faith because he has failed to fully protect anyone for whom he provides for."

Thank sure shut Dad's smile up as Connor tried not to get one of his own.

"He—" Connor began.

"Well, well," Spike said from the floor, "The Betty Crocker of Death is on team Spike 'cause she sees I'm the one here every day."

"Your ego is no more worthy than his," she said, "He provides what is necessary for the structure, but cannot provide intimacy. You provide intimacy but you lack structure. You are both flawed. Only I provide Faith with both structure and intimacy."

"I wouldn't put yourself on any Saint cards, little Shiva. You're the most selfish one here," Spike said to her.

Again Spike's words had no heat towards her. Connor knew it was hard to be mad at Illyria, but he was surprised Spike knew it too. Connor should still stick up for her.

"Ill's sacrificed the most," Connor said, "In fact, she's literally sacrificed having her own self. That's the opposite of selfish, selfless."

"This is neither about selflessness nor selfishness. I provided what The Chosen Slayer needs as she once provided for me," she said.

She was all Illyria looking again, all blue.

"Bullocks," Spike said, "This isn't settling a debt. You love playin' Southside Carole Brady for one kick-ass raven-haired Cindy."

"This reference is lost on me," Illyria said, "Are you speaking of The Brady Bunch? The mother of Faith did not often watch The Brady Bunch she preferred Scooby Doo. Winifred Burkle watched a great deal of PBS."

Connor wondered how she could be so awkwardly adorable.

"When Faith was your friend she never gave you lies," Spike said, "She told you the truth about humanity. Got you to stop banging your head against the wall over it, over Wes, because you weren't Fred. That's why you clung to Faith so, like a suction cup. Now, you're enjoying this a bit too much, aren't you? Now she looks to you, relies on you like no one else. You get to be everything to her. Being a mother is the closest thing you get to being a god-king again."

"Hey, man!" Connor began, "You have no right to insult—"

"Not insulting her, kid," Spike said, "I'm just telling her the truth, like Faith used to. I think having Faith love her gives he more than the worship of seven dimensions ever did. It's just that they can't ever be friends now. And as real as blue's motherly love is, it's based on lies."

He was sunken on the couch again.

"You dare to think your feelings and intentions are the only real and pure things in this world," she said to him.

She didn't seem that mad at him either. They were like the opposite of a bickering sexual-tension couple that wanted to get nasty with each other. Connor was glad of that.

"He tends to think that about his feelings for women until he forgets all about them," Angel said.

Illyria that knocked pushed Spike back on the couch when he went to rise. Connor wished she was pushing him down on furniture.

"I am not done speaking to you!" she snapped, "You think you are the only one who has suffered and lost. I have researched and scoured and communed with everything living and dead to become the woman that Faith thinks I am, to become The mother, because I did not know what else to do."

There was heartbreaking pain in her voice. Connor could feel the air move. She was shifting and merging into looking like Faith's mom, Marishka, and a bit of herself.

"I know I ain't perfect, but I've tried so freakin' hard. What do you want from me, Spike? Let's pretend you're the freakin' genius you think you are, and not a wicked retard. What would _she_ want from me? Tell me! Would she want me to take her mind and shatter it again? Would my Faithy want me to tell her child-self the hard truth? That her mother is dead and gone and she was dead and gone too except—except she was brought back into a treacherous life where she was tortured! And I am the thing that made that happen- me. I'm not her mother, I'm not her friend, I am a monster that made it-"

She was crying. Standing before Spike crying. Spike was just looking at her completely shocked. Angel was too. Seriously? 350 years of experience with women between them and this was all they had. Stunned silence. Maybe Illyria had never been a woman to them. Maybe they were both morons. No, not maybe.

"Illyria," Connor said and pulled her to him.

She didn't pull away and went easily with his arms around his neck.

"Call me Ill, like you were," she said while crying, "It's what Faith would call me. She was the only one who let me be my true self in this world, and look what I did to her. I let that Half-Breed former Slayer, that _thing, _get her."

"S'not your fault, Ill," Spike said, "It's mine. I'm the one who knew Buffy's darkness and Faith's lightness. I knew them better than anyone and I had them both in front of me and I couldn't stop one from destroying the other."

"Yeah, that's right," he said turning to Angel, "I know it's my fault. I'm the one who knows them both, not y—"

"I don't care whose fault it is. I just need to know what Faith would want!" Illyria cried.

"I don't know what grown Faith would want from you now," Connor said, "Maybe she wouldn't want you to use the word 'retard' because it's kinda considered offensive now. I know it's a Boston thing but—But, I know nine year-old Faith loves you. She loves what you've become for her. Trust me. I know you think I'm young, but I've lived a lot of lives and I know about lies. All different kinds of lies, and I know when love is true and real and I've never seen love truer or realer than what you-"

She kissed him then. Full on the mouth while standing on her little toes. It was grabby and tongue-y and awesome. He didn't care if it came from her knowledge of being a seven dimension goddess or from researching Faith's mom. He just wanted more of it, but she stopped.

"We must settle this," she said, "How do we protect Faith from Buffy?"

"Simple, if Buffy shows she's a threat to Faith we kill her," Spike said, " See, I'm not like you, Angel. I know I own no one. It doesn't matter how I feel 'bout Buffy or Faith. Faith is going to grow up, and despite looking a bit old for her age she's going to have the perfect life. That's what's right. That's what owed to her, and even if Buffy is owed more we can't have her hurtin' a child."

He smiled a sad smile and walked away from the group.

He had lit his cigarette and opened the sliding glass door and was blowing smoke into the cold Portland night air not looking at anyone or anything until he spoke again and looked at Angel.

"I'll be damned if I won't kill anything and anyone, yes even other things I love less, to stop Faith from going through any kind of Hell again," he said.

There was a beat of silence.

"Well, that's devotion," Connor said, "crazy mad admirable devotion, but it looks like we aren't solving this tonight, so—"

"Buffy won't come here," Angel said, "She won't find her and if you try to hurt Her with some warped pre-emptive strike I will kill you and tell Faith you had to go to The Vampire Academy in a dimension upstate. Faith will have a good life and so will Buffy. They don't need to suffer or know what happened."

"You be sure of that now," Spike said miserably.

"I will," Angel said.

"Okay, great," Connor said, "Everyone is happy, or at least equally miserable. Good family meeting. Bye."

There were a million things Connor could say, but none of it mattered, or would at least no one would listen. So, he and Illyria might as well be alone.

"Connor," Illyria said, "I can sense there is something on your mind. Spill it."

She grinned as she became the Illyria/Faith's mom blend. She did know what it did to him!

"Well, just to speak from experience here," Connor said, "No kid can have the perfect life. You could write out all the memories you want them to have and magically ensure they live it, but that only protects them for so long and they don't really forget the bad stuff."

"Connor, I know you're speaking of your own life, but we cannot-can't fail," Illyria said, "We can learn a lot from how you were wronged, so it will not happen again to my Faith."

"I don't thin—" Angel began and Illyria cut him off sharply.

"I'm done speaking with you Half-Breeds," she said, "Angel, you have told us of The Slayer Vampire's awakening. You can leave my domain. I would be hospitable and offer you a room, but I know you do not wish to stay especially now. Spike, you have done what I needed you to do, and I'm done with you. Go to your room."

"You sending me to my room, mum superior? Don't you really want to send the kid to yours," Spike said all-amused.

"This is true," she said flatly but then had a grin, "But I think it only works if I go with him."

"Still with the older complicated women. I thought they fixed this," Angel said stonily as he looked at Connor.

"The memories of my family made me feel loved. They didn't cut my balls off. Bye, dad," Connor said.

Spike snickered.

"Angel," Illyria said as she walked up to him.

Connor noticed when she spoke to his father she was always very still and formal, full on Illyria. He wondered why.

"I promise I will take the utmost care of your son. I will not harm or damage him in any way. I respect his intelligence as well as his superior physical ability. Like you Half-Breeds Champions he has lived different lives, but unlike you he is still truly young which makes him more vital and less stagnant for-—"

"I don't want to know any of this!" Angel said.

"Oh, won't you let her go on, father?" Connor joked, "I do feel like the prettiest girl at the ball."

Spike full on laughed.

"Does my speaking to your father emasculate you?" Illyria asked Connor.

Her eyes were bright blue as she turned to him.

"That isn't my intention," she said, "I just don't want any interference from him. Protectors can be mettlesome. So much offends the male ego I often lose track."

She walked closer to him and he took her hand and kissed it as she spoke stiffly. She wasn't the only one who could sense things. With all her formalness he smelled the same smell as when they kissed. She wanted him. Her eyes turned brown.

"My ego and all my vital non-stagnant parts are cool," he said and pulled her in to kiss her.

It was just a little kiss. He wasn't a freak. He wasn't going to tongue her in front of his father. There was enough inappropriate things like that in the past. But even with his closed mouth cupping drawing in hers. He could feel her become more human, warmer. He could feel her body shift.

"Connor!" and there was his father yelling at him.

"I love you, Connor. Be careful. Don't do anything that can't be undone," Angel muttered.

He left with his batman speed after that.

"What does that mean?" Illyria said.

Now she stood in his arms with her hands against his chest. She had the figure and eyes of Faith's mother but the rest was the old her. She still had the leather outfit on but it went from a tall size 0 to a short size 4. Completely beautiful either way. Connor knew she seemed to have gained some of the South Boston street smarts but there was so much she didn't understand. He wanted to know what she knew and didn't know. Connor wanted to know everything about Illyria and what she had become, or was becoming.

"_Don't do anything that can't be undone_?" she continued to ask, "None of this can be undone. None of us have the ability to travel back in time."

"It means," Spike said, "He's an asshole. Well, goodnight, kids. Don't wake-up Faith. She has horse back riding in the morning, yeah."

"You know her door is sound-proof, otherwise you'd wake her up with your chowder head bitchin'," Illyria said to him as Spike walked away.

Connor noticed she was very stiff with Angel, but very gruff and South Boston with Spike. He didn't know how he felt about that.

"Yeah, yeah," Spike muttered and left.

"What's wrong? Something in you has shifted," she asked him with South Boston brown eyes.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Connor said, "A sound-proof door in Faith's room. What if something gets in?"

"I have the ability to hear everything in her room that may disturb her slumber. Part of my consciousness is always with her. Right now there are two other living creatures in her room. Spiders. They are harmless and eat the other bugs."

"So you are always watching over her, no matter what?" he asked.

"Always," she said, "I don't think I could stop now if I wanted. You must know I will not let Faith be threatened at all. I will kill that Half Breed Slayer with the odd name if she comes here searching for memories. I won't kill your father if he tries to get in my way, but I will maim him so he stays out of it. I know Spike says he will do these things too but I do not know if I believe him. He—"

"You know what? I'm done talking about Spike and my dad and the Buffy vampire with a million names for tonight. Faith is okay. That's all that matters," Connor said.

He brushed her brown and blue hair back and she melted inside. He could feel it, smell it, almost taste it.

"Yes, it is," she said, "You must know Faith will always come before anything, but this will not affect the quality of my attention to you as a ma-"

He kissed her deeply now and she moaned. He put his hands on her ass that seemed to shift in fullness.

"Oh, more! More!" she said her voice lost all formalness.

Connor always had many questions about Illyria, but none of the answers he wanted required talking, and he was going to try to get answers tonight. All of this stuff with the Buffy of many names wasn't his concern. Nothing was after Faith now, and nothing was after Faith's mother-but-not, dead Fred-but-not, The God-king, The Embodiment of immaculate Rule, The Shaper of Things… Nothing was going to get Connor's Illyria. She had so many names she could kick anyone's ass he was sure, and he had her in his arms all wanting and warm. Now he just had to get her to bed before Faith woke up.

"I've seen this done to expedite the arrival to the chamber," she said, "Take me to there."

She jumped into his arms. So, much for taking things slow. He was so into Her.

* * *

Things will begin to unfold (Unravel) soon, but before that maybe a sexy interlude with a vampire's son and a god-king...


End file.
